State Senator Chalks Sidewalk at Ohio State, Protesting Ban

An Ohio state senator wrote a message in chalk Wednesday on Ohio State University’s campus, protesting the chalking ban the university announced last fall.

“Ohio State has a stupid policy,” Sen. Bill DeMora, a Democrat whose district includes the university, told Inside Higher Ed. He said he told the university ahead of time what he was going to do, and a vice president tried to dissuade him, but he went ahead anyway, writing, “Welcome back students! Go Bucks!” on a sidewalk in front of the Ohio Union.

DeMora said the university hasn’t taken any action against him, and can’t.

“It’s clearly unconstitutional,” he said of the policy, adding, “they’re not dumb enough to arrest a state senator who’s going [to write], ‘Welcome back students.’”

The university policy, announced a year ago, says chalk “will be removed by Facilities Operations and Development, which reserves the right to charge for the cost of any repairs required due to removal. In addition, any students found to be responsible would be subject to potential conduct referral.”

Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio wrote a letter to university president Ravi V. Bellamkonda saying the ban violates the First Amendment, and threatening to sue.

“By OSU’s own public account, it silences an entire medium of speech because OSU received too many complaints about the content that was being expressed,” the letter said. “Even more disturbingly, OSU’s records demonstrate that the Chalking Ban was enacted specifically to suppress a particular political viewpoint: pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist speech, which several community members complained was offensive. OSU lacks any compelling justification to justify this ban, and the fact that it is superficially framed in content-neutral terms will not save it.”

A university spokesperson wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed, “Ohio State is committed to protecting free speech and expression on our campuses, and we support the right of students, faculty, staff and visitors to speak out about issues that are important to them.” He also said the “chalking in question has been removed in accordance with our policy.”