ISU marijuana law reform group under heat for using Cy logo
November 30, 2012
A new group on campus has found themselves under scrutiny for their use of the ISU logo of the mascot Cy on their club T-shirts.
The ISU chapter of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws, “NORML ISU,” met with Tom Hill, the vice president of student affairs, on Thursday, Nov. 28, to discuss the print on their shirts.
The meeting was called after an article had been run in the Des Moines Register and a note had been written to the editor talking about the T-shirts.
“What we need to do is start sorting through issues,” Hill said. “There is a reason those T-shirts are popular. I would not suggest putting Cy on a shirt trying to legalize something that is illegal. You got these in production, we aren’t trying to take them, but you can’t print them anymore. If we can get away from ‘yay or nay’ and just say we are from Iowa State University, that would be good.”
Warren Madden, senior vice president of business and finance, was also at the meeting.
“Whether the mark (Cy) as it’s presented endorses the act that you guys are supporting, and we don’t endorse anything, not just this act,” Madden said. “Right at the moment there have been some issues with the way these have been developed.”
“We have a university concern with the potential of producing more shirts with the mark on it, as is,” Madden continued. “You have to put these in the context: there is no question you got approval to do this, and now we are getting feedback and are reviewing the T-shirt.”
The meeting came to the conclusion that the students need to come up with new designs. The T-shirt they have now has been declared as unfit, and seen as Iowa State endorsing something that they are not. The shirts are no longer in production.
Connor Jennings, junior in industrial engineering, gave his response to how the meeting went.
“We went in there,” Jennings said. “We tried to talk about why the meeting was called, what the big problem with the shirt was, and the problem was that Cy’s logo was incorporated with the [National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws] logo. They felt that we were saying Iowa State was endorsing [National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws]. So we need to make different shirts.”
The group will continue to make different sketches for their T-shirt until they find one that Iowa State approves of.