In the July 31 edition of 225 Magazine, Collins Phillips, the much maligned activist and founder of the Student Equality Commission, vows to once again take up the fight against the purple-and-gold Confederate flag during this football season. As we’ve previously stated, The Daily Reveille supports the right to protest this flag as well as the right to fly it. And we believe any attempt to stifle either effort is an unacceptable infringement upon the First Amendment. Therefore we take issue with a statement released by Chancellor Sean O’Keefe responding to the 225 article and Phillips’ statements. In this statement O’Keefe writes, “Any event, rally, demonstration or protest that is not registered will not be permitted on campus.” O’Keefe goes on to offer what we view as a thinly veiled threat, writing, “Those organizing and registering such events are reminded of the ‘peaceful assembly’ policy and the Student Code of Conduct.” This is not the first time the University has attempted to corral Phillips using the Student Code of Conduct. Earlier this year the University accused Phillips of five violations of the code. One week later-after Phillips got a lawyer involved-those charges were dropped. We believe it is categorically wrong for the University to use the code to restrain Phillips or others for speaking their minds, and the renewed threat to do so is unacceptable. This situation reminds us of a previous protest in Baton Rouge. On the morning of December 15, 1961 the Rev. B. Elton Cox led a group of more than 1,500 students on a march from Southern University to the downtown courthouse protesting the previous day’s arrest of 23 of their colleagues who had picketed segregated lunch counters. Police attempted to disband the demonstration which everyone involved said was peaceful. When Cox and his supporters refused to do so, the police fired multiple tear gas shells into the crowd. The Rev. Cox’s subsequent conviction on four charges, including disturbing the peace, was appealed, and the case was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court overturned his conviction in a 7-2 decision. In their decision the court wrote, “It is clear that the practice in Baton Rouge allowing unfettered discretion in local officials in the regulation of the use of the streets for peaceful parades and meetings is an unwarranted abridgment of appellant’s freedom of speech and assembly secured to him by the First Amendment.” As a public university, LSU’s policy of requiring students to gain permission from a governmental body in order to protest the same governmental body is not only a clear violation of the First Amendment, it is laughably illogical.
—–Send letters to the editor to [email protected]