Brad Goldberg is a lucky man.

He is the artist who is receiving $28,000 from Iowa State for an art project at the new Student Health Center that isn’t going to be built. Yes, he received $28,000 for conceiving a project that never came to fruition.

President Martin Jischke decided he didn’t like Goldberg’s plan and halted work on the plan. Goldberg received the big bucks because he had already signed a contract with the university committee that was overseeing the project.

All state government buildings must have 0.5 percent of their costs go to artwork.

The big problem here was lack of communication between the committee and Jicshke. Either Jischke should have spoken with the committee sooner or the committee should have sought Jischke’s input sooner.

What makes Jischke and the university look bad in this fiasco is how the students will view the action. After a year filled with speech issues, it seems the university has a major problem with speech.

The September 29th Movement was denied a permit to hold a rally in the lobby of Beardshear Hall. They held a rally anyway, testing the policy. Five were given conduct probation. Others have tried to address the speech issues with administrators and, admittedly, it seems the university is working on something.

What the students need to hear is not that the university is just working on something, but that new policies are in place, allowing more free speech.

We understand that the university can’t just let Goldberg or any other artist have total free range with government art, but to students, this has the appearance of restricting more speech; after all, art is speech. The contract was signed, the committee seemed to like the project, but the president, at the last minute, said it was a no-go. To faculty and staff, it seems to have the appearance of micromanagement and a lack of communication.

To Jischke’s credit, he does have the power to do this, and maybe he just saved us from having to hear “What kind of crap is this?” from passers-by at the Student Health Center