Letter to the Editor: University Enforcing Condom Policy Anathema to Students' Free Speech
UNIVERSITY ENFORCING CONDOM POLICY ANATHEMA TO STUDENTS’ FREE SPEECH
THE HOYA
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
OCTOBER 1, 2002
To the Editor:
Continuing to erode what’s left of the academic right to free speech on this campus, Georgetown’s draconian decision to prevent the condom distribution on residence hall doors sets a frightening precedent.
This is the latest in a series of rights-based infringements on the student body under the questionable premise of “protection.” In other words, the administration has unilaterally decided the course of action and chosen to act without reason or impetus from actual students. LGTBQ Center? Lockdown Policy? See the pattern?
Just whom do they think they’re really protecting with these idiotic policies?
THE HOYA
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
OCTOBER 1, 2002
To the Editor:
Continuing to erode what’s left of the academic right to free speech on this campus, Georgetown’s draconian decision to prevent the condom distribution on residence hall doors sets a frightening precedent.
This is the latest in a series of rights-based infringements on the student body under the questionable premise of “protection.” In other words, the administration has unilaterally decided the course of action and chosen to act without reason or impetus from actual students. LGTBQ Center? Lockdown Policy? See the pattern?
Just whom do they think they’re really protecting with these idiotic policies?
The justification for this new ban is absurd. Apparently condoms on doors now fall under the University policy against “grossly obscene or grossly offensive” material and as such violate the “communal nature” of the Residence Halls. According to Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez, the “giving away of questionable items” is not permitted because “students need to feel as though this is their home and each person will respect all persons privacy and privileges.”
IS HE KIDDING? This is a white envelope on someone’s door we’re talking about. Grossly obscene? Grossly offensive? Even questionable? I’d like to meet a single students who can say with a straight face that placement of such envelopes violates their “privacy and privileges” and they are “grossly offended” by them. Please.
We all know what this is really about. It’s about our Catholic identity rearing its ugly head again in the form of censorship and didactic imposition of “values.” This university already refuses to provide easily accessible birth control, either from the on-campus pharmacy or bathroom condom dispensers common at campuses around the nation. Now they’re refusing to let private individuals distribute condoms from their own place of residence. What’s next – school sponsored lectures on the evils of actually using birth control??
Students will certainly continue to have sex regardless of whether condoms remain on doors. Impeding H*yas for Choice in their quest for increased safe sex does nothing but harm the very students this university claims to be “protecting.”