On Nov. 5, 1996, students at Iowa State University acted upon their deepest convictions and exercised their First Amendment right to Free Speech. On Nov. 6, 1996, America lost one of the greatest defenders of Free Speech, Mario Savio. It seems now that our freedom to speak out at Iowa State may have died with him.

In the fall of 1964 at the University of California, Berkeley, Mario emerged as the leader of the Free Speech Movement which culminated in a sit-in of 1,200 students in the administrative building and resulted in the police arresting and dragging from the building over 800 students.

Mario’s prophetic words rang out as he spoke to the crowd just prior to the sit-in: “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even tacitly take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears, upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

In 1964 at Berkeley, the university tried to prevent students from bringing controversial issues, namely racism, to the forefront. In 1997 in Ames, the situation is repeated. President Jischke says that no one is being silenced and he’s right.

We can still speak out. But we do so with the know1edge that if we attempt to bring to the table issues that cut to the heart of the university and expose the dark truth therein, we can be punished and punished severely by an administration with impunity.

If the rights of one student are abused, we are all at risk. We must be willing to stop the machine until our rights as students can be protected.

Monica Willemsen

Senior

Religious Studies