When police don't understand the laws they are supposed to enforce, they send the wrong message to the public. When those laws deal with the First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly, the effect is especially harmful.

By Shara Esbenshade & Cody Bralts-Steindl

Gargoyle contributor & guest correspondent

Posted Sunday, March 11, 2007, The OG, opinions & in depth

[Note: Shara Esbenshade is a junior at Uni High and a frequent contributor to the Gargoyle. Cody Bralts-Steindl is a freshman at Urbana High School. An earlier version of this commentary first appeared as part of a larger article in the February 2007 issue of the Public i, the monthly newspaper of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. The case described by Esbenshade and Bralts-Steindl has already attracted national attention. The Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit organization that defends the First Amendment rights of high school and college students, published an article about the case Feb. 27. Click here for the story.]

THE INCIDENT WE described in our article “Abuse of Power? Police confront local activists” showcases police incompetence in Champaign-Urbana.

Both Lt. Roy Acree of the University of Illinois Police Department and Sgt. Scott Friedlein of the Champaign Police Department admitted there was a lack of communication within and between departments regarding whether members of AWARE had the right to pass out literature in a U of I parking lot during the 2006 IHSA football championships.

In addition, the separate police departments seemed to operate with different understandings of the laws at different times.

The CPD on Nov. 25, the day of the incident, told us we could not flier on University property because it was private but that using the sidewalk was OK.

The University police gave us three different, contradictory statements with regard to fliering at the IHSA event: that it was entirely permissible; that no one was allowed to flier in the parking lot (although they allowed the Illinois National Guard to do so); and that we had been moved not because fliering was illegal or because University property was private property, but because they wanted to protect us.

AN UNLEVEL PLAYING FIELD

It is clear that there are gray areas of University rules, but it seems that the CPD and the University police make up policies as they go. This is especially disturbing in the case of the IHSA football championships because the police departments seem to have altered policies depending on the group that was involved.

The Illinois National Guard was allowed to flier in the disputed parking lot. The National Guard was also an official sponsor of the IHSA event. If the National Guard was permitted to flier because they paid money to sponsor the event, then they were, in effect, buying free speech.

Free speech is a civil right held sacred by the Constitution of the United States of America. To create a system that allows one group free speech while denying it to another is not only unconstitutional but violates the ideals this country was based on. For the National Guard, an institution meant to protect the United States, such an un-American act is truly inappropriate.

A TWISTED MESSAGE

This is scarcely the first time the police in Champaign-Urbana gave orders without sufficient reason. We know it happened in 1990 when several U of I students and Prof. Belden Fields were arrested for holding signs protesting the CIA in the Illini Union basement. It happened again last December when the International Socialist Organization was prohibited from distributing fliers in the hallway of the U of I Main Library even though ISO members were not disrupting the traffic flow.

Civilians, especially youth, are not usually familiar with rules regarding details such as where one can distribute literature or the legality of such rules. A civilian should be able to trust that what the police say is illegal is in fact so. Yet this incident is a perfect illustration that the police are not always clear on the rules themselves.

As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 19th century, American democracy would not survive long if it were not for the involvement of civic groups. When police do not feel the need to check their actions against the laws and rules, rights are violated and political activity is stifled.

It is crucial to understand the effect that this abuse of police power has on the minds of youth. It is intimidating, especially to a generation that has grown up during a time when dissent is often branded as unpatriotic. The rudeness of the police, their power to arrest, and their propensity to act against political activity, regardless of its legality, discourage political action and civic responsibility.

RELATED

— Gargoyle: Abuse of power? Police confront local activists

— Student Press Law Center: Student Press Law Center, Feb. 27, 2007: Local group claims university discouraged distribution of anti-war flyers (sic)

— U of I Student Code: Posting and Distribution of Handout Materials