Most of the time, when you hear about censorship on college campuses it’s in response to something political in nature – a “bias incident,” a lecture or a newspaper editorial. This, however, is a new one to me:

The University of Virginia has banned homemade signage at all of its sporting events, citing a desire to promote a “positive game-day experience.” Not just offensive or inappropriate signs. All of them. Not even “go team!” Rick Reilly at ESPN was having none of it:

One thing is clear. This is un-American. This isn’t Havana. What’s next? No yelling? No grumbling? No heavy sighing? How are students supposed to effect change at their school? Morse-code flashlights? And if they can censor students at the stadium, what’s to keep them from doing it on The Lawn?

Reilly is right. This isn’t Havana. This is college athletics, where it’s the student section’s job to harangue the opposition into a neurotic mess. If the UVA athletic department is so concerned about hurting people’s feelings, maybe it should relegate itself to activities like croquet and knitting circles. Or perhaps it should promote a positive game-day experience by, I don’t know, winning games. (The UVA football team had a lackluster 5-7 season last year.)

Fortunately, the UVA students are not standing for this nonsense, either. At their most recent home football game, thousands of UVA students held up blank pieces of paper at predetermined times to protest the new rule, proving that freedom of speech is just as alive and well in the sports arena as the political arena. Protest organizers even quoted fellow Virginian (and UVA founder) Thomas Jefferson, who once said ” .. a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing …”

Cross-posted at the CAMPUS Magazine Online blog.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 14:15 by CJ Ciaramella and is filed under Free Speech, Snark, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.