AS I WATCHED the television cameras scan across Chinese spectators mimicking the officially sanctioned Olympic cheer and conforming to “spectator etiquette campaigns,” my mother handed me a Washington Post article saying the University had banned all signs at home athletic games. The troubling parallel could not be more striking.
The University’s ban is a clear infringement of free speech and a disgrace to its much-touted Jeffersonian ideals. Signs are a visual representation of people’s views or feelings, and hence a blanket ban on them naturally hinders free expression. The ban will also take the wind out of the sails of “home advantage” and dampen the fiery and euphoric atmosphere that surrounds sports at this University. Gone are the days when maddened fans would slave hours concocting clever banners and waving them furiously at games, salivating at the opportunity to get on television or have some fun.
Some have opined that the new ban is a better policy because the University restricts all signs across the spectrum of opinion rather than targeting specific signs it does not agree with as it has done in the past (read: “Fire Groh”). This is spin worthy of Fox News but little else. Restricting freedom of expression is wrong on principle whether or not it is targeted at a particular perspective or all perspectives as a whole. The athletic department may find the new ban “better” because it does not have to lose sleep determining what is “derogatory” or “profane” on a case-by-case basis if there are no signs altogether. But students ought not accept this travesty just so that the athletic department will be better rested.
Athletic department spokesman Rich Murray soothingly assured me in an interview that “the intention of the policy is to support and promote sportsmanship and a positive game-day environment for all fans.” But his statement sounded eerily similar to and as empty as propagandized Chinese statements assuring the world its Olympic policies were intended to protect its citizens’ constitutional right to free speech. Besides, as any sports fan knows, waving signs and yelling at the top of one’s voice is not bad sportsmanship but a good sign of vital, psychological home ground advantage.
While the University can justify its new policy with smooth rhetoric, its poor articulation of the policy change to students is simply inexcusable. When I tried to cross-check the Washington Post’s reference to an “e-mail to students” on the policy, I found only one cold line buried in a 70-line e-mail entitled “Student Ticketing for Athletics Events”: “Beginning this year, signs are not permitted inside athletic facilities. Thank you for your cooperation.” At least the Chinese government bothered to organize mass public campaigns advertising and rationalizing its infringements on free speech, I thought to myself. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the University intentionally introduced the policy buried in a mass e-mail one week before courses begin to ensure low visibility and minimum fuss.
Articulation and principles aside, the policy itself also appears unclear and ill-defined. While the GameDay Central Web site states that “all banners, signs and flags” are prohibited, the e-mail only referred to “signs.” Which one is it? Murray also refused to clarify what exactly the definition of “sign” was in the interview, which could also raise eyebrows. As a Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist pondered, “does it include pieces of cloth with written messages, T-shirts with messages or body-painted messages”?
No student knows the exact rationale behind this unacceptable, ill-defined and horrendously unpublicized ban. Media speculation traces it back to last year, when University student Michael Becker got his controversial “Fire Groh” sign taken away and the athletic department eventually decided that a blanket ban would prevent such isolated incidents from recurring. But if it is indeed the case, Becker told me that the real problem was not his offensive sign but incoherent policy. He was initially told he could bring his sign in since it was not considered derogatory or offensive, but the athletic department changed its mind during the third quarter of the game.
If so, the department should have gone through the grueling task of setting consistent and clear standards about what is allowed, rather than impinging on freedom of speech because it was simply too laborious to do so. The athletic department of this Jeffersonian institution has instead chosen to put expediency above the preservation of fundamental freedoms. And that should be a worrying sign to every one of its students.
Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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