The lowa State Daily has done an accurate and thorough job of news coverage on the judicial fiasco unfolding in the Office of Judicial Affairs (OJA) at Iowa State University (ISU) and its arbitrary handling of charges against members of The September 29th Movement. However, two Daily columnists, Theresa Wilson and Steven Martens, apparently still have misperceptions about what is transpiring and have respectively accused The Movement of “need(ing) a lesson in civil disobedience” (Feb. 13) and “(trying) to weasel out of the charges” (Feb. 19) levied against us.

When ISU officials turned down our request for a permit to hold the Nov. 5 town meeting in the lobby of Beardshear Hall, we immediately said we would hold the meeting without a permit. Central Committee member Kel Munger met with Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Loris Jaeger and asked: At what point will we be arrested? We didn’t want anyone entering Beardshear unaware of what might happen to them.

There would be no arrests, Jaeger said, unless we did something criminal, i.e., break windows, block entrances, etc. We asked DPS to provide uniformed security and they agreed.

On Nov. 4 several Movement officials met again with Jaeger and also Dean of Students Kathleen MacKay. No arrests, we were told again, but we would be charged with unauthorized use of space and receive minor punishment. MacKay later told English professors Stephen Pett and Jay Berry the same thing. I’ve recently been told that MacKay claims to have me on tape saying protesters might receive conduct probation. If this is true, I thought at the time of the rally that conduct probation was minor punishment, as MacKay said it was. Everyone else at the Nov. 4 meeting said she only mentioned written reprimands; all of us agree that she dismissed any sanctions as minor. I now understand that conduct probation is a serious sanction given to students for armed robbery and other felony offenses.

Participants would not be cited, only the organizers of the event, MacKay said. So more than 60 Movement members wore “organizer” labels the next day and voluntarily handed them to MacKay at the town meeting. Does this sound like we were running?

When the charges came down, it was clear that MacKay had lied. When her office insisted on conducting hearings during Dead Week and Finals Week, we understood OJA was playing hardball and secured Maggi Moss as our attorney.

All but two Movement members charged pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of space. Does this sound like we’re “trying to weasel out of the charge (singular)?” Ten students were eventually found guilty of the same two charges, but five received reprimands and five received conduct probation.

Wilson argues that “there is no such thing as ‘free’ speech” because speech is subject to the legal constraints of time, place and manner. In “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about just laws and unjust applications: “… there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust. ” (italics mine)

Like King, we see nothing wrong with requiring a permit to have a rally in the lobby of Beardshear, but we had no choice but to assert our right of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest. We also didn’t know punishment would be more harsh because we secured an attorney, which is what MacKay told the Daily.

Wilson also thinks the entire Catt debate is only about Catt. There are more serious issues, she says. She may even perceive our position as an attack on feminism, although women who consider themselves feminists have been leading The Movement’s campaign to change the name since the very beginning. It’s not an attack on feminism or women or white people, all of whom belong to The Movement. When the name’s changed, it should honor women, who have been little honored or valued on this campus.

Many of our critics engage in selective thinking and reading, so we’ll say again what Catt Hall is about. A Drummer editorial recently summed up a major problem at ISU which applies directly to Catt Hall: “There is one culture, experience and mind-set dictating the administration of (ISU) — that’s President Jischke’s mind-set. It includes the notion that he has been preordained as the hired hand of a regent committee and appointed by the governor. His policies, he says, are those of the ‘People of Iowa.'”

Catt Hall is a symbol. The same kind of thinking that went into placing that symbol on this campus goes into stifling protest. The same kind of thinking that went into naming Catt Hall goes into ISU’s seriously flawed star-chamber judiciary system. Jischke says he wasn’t here when the decision was made about Catt; he wasn’t here when they sat Jack Trice metaphorically at the back of the bus behind Cyclone Stadium and a hyphen either, but he’s recommended a name change.

As for more serious problems on campus than the kind of students-don’t-count thinking that Catt Hall symbolizes, Wilson’s probably talking about: ethnic studies programs that get about $50 a week to operate, the absence of an Asian-American studies program; an insurance plan that costs same-sex partners $111 a year more than other staff and faculty, a student handbook that completely ignores the lesbian / gay / bisexual / transgender community, ethnic studies programs that have existed for several years without permanent directors, and so on.

If Jischke won’t change a symbol that offends at least 19 percent of the student body according to a Daily poll — that’s about 4,500 students, before we even get to faculty and staff — The September 29th Movement doesn’t believe he’ll make substantial changes to problems like those listed above. Historically, the elite make cosmetic, palliative changes designed to soothe, not to cure. When he changes the symbol, then maybe we’ll believe that he’s capable of making substantive change.

Milton McGriff

Graduate student

Creative Writing

Member of The September 29th Movement Central Committee