Constitutional Law

N.C. State students object to racist graffiti in tunnel

By By The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. ? A reappearance of racist graffiti directed at President Barack Obama has protesters at North Carolina State University calling for changes to a part of campus dedicated to anything-goes speech.

Student protesters blocked access overnight to the Free Expression Tunnel, a major pedestrian thoroughfare that connects two parts of the Raleigh campus divided by railroad tracks. By late yesterday morning, although some protesters remained, the students had stopped their blockade, university spokesman Keith Nichols said.

Chancellor Randy Woodson met with students protesting at the tunnel and elsewhere on campus.

"The chancellor went down and visited with the students for about half an hour this morning and had a very constructive conversation," Nichols said.

Woodson has condemned the graffiti, which has been painted over. It apparently depicted Obama along with racist and anti-gay slurs.

The Free Expression Tunnel was built in 1939, and was dedicated to freewheeling student speech in the 1960s. Sentiments painted or posted in the tunnel commonly range from the political to the mundane.

"Students are free to say whatever they like, and if you walk through the tunnel on any given day you'll see advertisements for events, or you'll see someone complaining about a boyfriend or girlfriend," Nichols said.

The several dozen student protesters, though, say they want tighter restrictions on what can be depicted inside the tunnel.

Some of the proposed remedies include more surveillance cameras around the tunnel and stricter enforcement of a request, posted on a sign near the tunnel, which asks students to refrain from offensive messages.

"Right now, we don't know what can be done," junior Kelvin Carter told Raleigh's WRAL-TV. "We're trying to figure that out by having forums, by having people voice their opinions."

Two years ago, a North Carolina State student who was never identified by the school apologized for spray painting racist, anti-Obama graffiti in the tunnel, shortly after the Democrat became the first black president in U.S. history.

The student was assigned community service and diversity training, which angered some civil rights groups that had advocated expulsion over the incident.

The Rev. William Barber, head of the state NAACP chapter, said he learned about the graffiti yesterday and planned to talk with the group's university chapter before commenting in detail. But he said the reappearance of racist messages targeted at the president is not a surprise.

"We've seen a legitimization of people being allowed to throw around racially charged language without being challenged in this election season," he said. "Whoever would write something like that in the tunnel again, on an amazing university campus, reveals something deeply problematic."

After the chancellor met with students yesterday, the school issued a statement saying the best response to the graffiti is a campus-wide discussion.

"While we find the comments left in the tunnel offensive, the basic issue here is free expression," the statement read. "Our challenge is allowing freedom of expression while encouraging a constructive, open and diverse campus climate."

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on November 04, 2010 (boomark / email).