While students usually are restricted to “free-speech zones” to express their opinions, there is another venue today for students to exercise their First Amendment rights on the ISU campus.

Richardson Court Association is hosting Free Speech Day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today in the RCA courtyard. The event is being held in conjunction with “Dormstock 2000,” the residence hall week celebration.

Luke DeKoster, Government of the Student Body senator representing RCA, is one of the main organizers and supporters of the event.

“The main goal is to highlight the value of free speech without regulation,” he said.

DeKoster said college is a place where people learn about life, but this lesson is prohibited by restrictions placed on students’ First Amendment rights. He said schools are trying to stretch the limits of how much they can prohibit students’ rights by having restrictions such as free-speech zones.

Some of the issues DeKoster said are unclear at Iowa State include the use of sidewalk chalk and the posting of signs. He said students are not allowed to put signs on lightpoles, although many signs can be seen posted on campus lightpoles.

“Instead of only having set places for signs, open up places for the most good,” DeKoster said.

Sidewalk chalk is not supposed to be used on campus, although chalk messages can be found throughout campus. DeKoster said a bill is currently going through GSB to reverse this regulation.

DeKoster said these rules imply the university does not have much trust for its students, but he said it does not seem students have done anything to cause this mistrust.

RCA President Nathan Ohrt said he wants the event to allow people to discuss free speech.

“We hope and encourage people to get up there and say what they feel,” Ohrt said.

Doug Miller, president of the ISU chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he wants people to realize they should be exercising their right to free speech.

“What we’d like to see is having somebody up and speaking all the time,” said Miller, senior in political science.

Miller said this event is one of the best ideas he has seen at Iowa State in a long time.

“This is the type of program that should be going on at ISU,” he said.

MIller said he will be speaking, and the ACLU will also have a banner and a table there to add to the visibility of the event.

Speakers who are scheduled to attend the event include DeKoster, Iowa State Daily cartoonist Carmen Cerra, members of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Campus Crusade members, RCA Senator Jenny Larson and GSB President-elect Ben Golding.