25 signatures reached
To: UNCW Police Dept
Stop UNCW officers from silencing our first amendment rights.
Dear University of North Carolina Wilmington Campus Police Department,
You recently used UNCW maintenance crews to erase a Black Lives Matter chalking campaign from our campus. In erasing our messages, you not only destroyed hours of campaign work, but you violated the UNCW chalking policy, which allows students to chalk on the concrete walkways around campus. In a press release, UNCW claimed that you were simply cleaning up campus for graduation. However in your report, you refer to the messages as "graffiti". We believe that if these messages weren't opposed personally by an officer on campus, they would not have been removed.
Why is this important?
UNCW students are having their first amendment rights violated by campus police officers that are unable to follow their own policies. The Black Lives Matter campaign was erased from our campus by officers who even our university Public Relations office refers to as "overzealous". There haven't been any consequences for the officer, and if our police aren't held responsible for this overstepping of boundaries, the university will continue policing the voice and opinions of its students.