Issued Feb. 12, 2007

S.T.O.P.--Stop the Ordinance Partnership wishes to express its support for the University of Central Florida chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and its members in their campaign for free speech and free assembly rights on campus.

Just as the City of Orlando, through its "large group feedings" ordinance has attempted to limit the ability of groups to express their social, political and religious beliefs by sharing food in public parks with hungry and homeless individuals, so has UCF attempted to limit the ability of students to peacefully assemble to express their political views. They have done this by restricting such activities to four small zones on a campus that is hundreds of acres in size and by, on several occasions, threatening with arrest SDS members who have protested outside of these zones. S.T.O.P. believes that, as with the City of Orlando, the UCF administration's policies and actions violate the U.S. and Florida Constitutions' guarantees of free speech and free assembly rights.

Individuals and groups should not have to fear that attempting to express their views on large parts of the UCF campus may subject them to disciplinary proceedings and trespass warnings and arrest by UCF police. This situation creates a climate antithetical to the concepts of freedom and open debate and mocks the highest ideals that institutions of higher education are supposed to represent.

S.T.O.P. calls upon the UCF administration to do the following:

• to cease immediately attempts to hinder SDS members, individually and collectively, from exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly;
• to rescind immediately the trespass warning issued by UCF police to student and SDS member Eric Eingold on Jan. 10, 2007 during the SDS "Free Store" held on the lawn in front of the Student Union. We also call upon the administration to expunge any information about this incident from Eingold's student records and to do the same for the other two SDS members given disciplinary referrals on Jan. 10;
• and to end immediately its policy of segregating free speech activities--protests, demonstrations, and other types of assemblies, to small areas of the campus. The entire campus should be designated a free speech and assembly zone, where students and citizens peacefully can express themselves in ways consistent with their desires, goals and consciences, in the process learning and helping society move in a positive direction.

ARTICLES:

from the Orlando Sentinel: "UCF rules fuel debate on freedom of speech" (Dec. 17, 2006)

from New Left Notes blog: "Campus Repression at UCF Intensifies" (Jan. 12, 2007)

from the Orlando Weekly (Jan. 18, 2007)