Dear Dean Cruz-Saco,
In last Friday’s Argus you were quoted as saying, “I would be interested in knowing how one can pass policy for ‘good’ chalking only.” As a student who cares about what goes on at Wesleyan, I appreciate this sort of open language and attitude—it reminds me that administrators do care about my opinions and are open to feedback.
Regarding a policy that would allow “good” chalking only, I have a proposition: Lift the ban on useful forms of chalking, but continue to enforce the community standards which we all agree on.
Our community standards can be enforced with chalking just as they are with all other means of communication. If hateful, offensive or explicit messages appear in chalk, they should be erased and the matter should be addressed within the community as other such instances are addressed.
I agree that hate speech should not be tolerated on campus and I appreciate the emails which you have sent notifying the campus community of such incidents. However, I do not believe that eliminating an entire means of communication is the proper response to ignorance. If a handful of students posted offensive remarks on kiosks and bulletin boards, would it be right to ban postering? Of course not—we would take down the posters and address the issue as needed. The same can be done with chalking, with some organization.
I would be happy to organize a group of students who would be responsible for monitoring chalking on campus and for ensuring that community standards are upheld on our sidewalks. I know plenty of students who would be glad to participate in this duty.
Most everyone agrees that we should have community standards, and many also feel that chalking is a wonderful and useful tool for expression, communication and community-building. These things, community standards and chalk, are not mutually exclusive.
Chalking got out of hand once and began to jeopardize our community standards, and the Wesleyan administration rightly took action. Do you think that perhaps now, three years after the initial ban, we are ready to try again, with more structure in place to ensure that chalking stays positive?
I am sincerely curious to hear your response to these ideas, and again, thank you for being open to honest communication and dialogue on matters that affect all of us here.
Sincerely,
Noa Wotton
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