Trampling Political Expression

By Jack Hobliztell

Staff Writer

n just a few weeks, millions of people all over the country will make the trip to their local polling place and exercise their right to vote. People's political passions are running high. In New York City, the airwaves are plastered with radio and television ads. In York, Maine; roadsides are lined with posters and signs supporting candidates for offices ranging from County Commissioner to President of the United States.

Here at Trinity, students are also following the campaigns closely, and many are actively supporting the efforts of their favorite candidate. However, unlike the outside world, where people from all sides of the political spectrum are able to express their views, some people at Trinity seem intent on preventing those with different political views from expressing them.

If one were to take a walk across the campus, he/she would see Clinton/Gore posters in many places around campus. However, they would see relatively few Dole/Kemp signs. Why is this? Perhaps it is because students at Trinity are primarily Democratic. Or is it because people who display Dole/Kemp signs are having them ripped off their doors and thrown away?

Just before the recent Presidential Debate in Hartford, a student involved in the College Republicans was putting up posters around campus. When her back was turned, someone stole a box full of them. In the past two weeks, I have had three posters ripped off my door and then torn up. People have also gone to the trouble of peeling bumper stickers off of my door.

Freedom of speech and the right to participate in politics are both rights protected by our Constitution. However, some students seem to be woefully ignorant of the document that protects all the freedoms that we enjoy. Everyone has the right to express their views, even if it offends others. To rip down signs because you don't agree with the view of someone else is to deny that person their rights. To invoke these rights when it is suitable to one's purposes and then to deny them to others when that person has different beliefs is the height of hypocrisy, and is what some Trinity students are guilty of when they destroy these posters and stifle the rights of others to express their political opinions.