Because some mean nasty horrible people use it to write stuff we disagree with…
The struggle is real, my friends. We’ve already looked at the horror being inflicted upon special snowflakes around the country these days as #TheChalkening sends college students scurrying for their safe space. Who knows what sort of lasting damage could ensue if young adults turn a corner on their morning walk only to see a name or campaign slogan emblazoned on the sidewalk where they are walking, enshrined there for all time? (Or at least until the next rainfall.) Not everyone is taking this threat lying down, however. At DePaul University in Chicago, students will soon be able to perambulate around the quad without fear of such lasting mental scar tissue because the university has banned chalking the sidewalks after someone was tasteless enough to write the name of Donald J. Trump on the pavement. (Daily Caller and Campus Reform)
DePaul University will no longer allow students to chalk political messages on the sidewalks of its campus because of the “offensive, hurtful, and divisive” nature of pro-Trump chalking found on campus last week.
“While these chalk messages are part of national agendas in a heated political battle, they appeared on campus at a time of significant racial tension in our country and on college campuses. DePaul is no exception,” Depaul’s vice president for student affairs Eugene Zdziarski wrote in a campus-wide email obtained by Campus Reform…
Campus Reform reached out to DePaul to ask why university officials chose to respond to this particular chalking instance despite claims that chalking “regularly” occurs on campus. No response was received in time for publication.
The entire idea of “chalking” as a form of expression has apparently been a tradition at DePaul for quite some time, just as it is on sidewalks around the nation. It may seem silly and even trashy (when attempted by those with less artistic flair) but if you’re going to allow the temporary defacement of the public thoroughfare in what is an essentially harmless exercise of the First Amendment it obviously has to apply to everyone. The alternative is to have it apply to nobody and that’s the course which the university has chosen.
And what led to it? You don’t even need to click on the link to determine that it was a Trump slogan. There was apparently no prohibition against competing Hillary vs. Bernie art or support for the minimum wage, Black Lives Matter or anything else. But if any of the College Republicans dare to try their hand at it, all bets are off. Thanks, Special Snowflakes! You continue to make the world a safer and stupider place.
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