MUNCIE, Ind. (The CI) - Ball State students and community members gathered by the Scramble Light on Admitted Students Day, calling for incoming freshmen and their families to “drop Ball State.”
Organizers centered the demonstration on student safety, free speech, and accountability for University Police Officer Michael Conner and Board Chair Brian Gallagher.
In a mass email sent to students by University President Geoffrey Mearns, the University planned to host “more than 5,000 visitors” today.
The night before, a video posted to the story of SJP Muncie (formerly Ball State Students for Justice in Palestine) on Instagram showed a University official sweeping up sidewalk chalk with a broom. The official called the chalking “graffiti,” because it was “with words.” The Noncommercial Expressive Activity Policy explicitly allows chalking “only on campus sidewalks or walkways that can be easily washed away by rain and that will not cause lasting or permanent damage.”
The Muncie Independent Media Service (MIMS) filed an APRA request in-person with the Office of General Counsel on April 10th at 10:25 a.m. The request asked for emails and phone logs between April 9th at 11 p.m. to April 10th at 1 a.m., in addition to any police reports that may have been filed on either day.
On the walk to the Administration Building, MIMS’ Vivian Bostick observed three University staffers washing away chalk with a broom and a bucket of water. It was sprinkling at the time and throughout the day.
In a speech, Tanya Pearson, Assistant Teaching Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, announced they quit their job at the University.
“My experience as an Assistant Teaching Professor here at Ball State is that I’ve had to bail students out of jail when they were arrested by the Muncie Police, after being called by the [University] administration for protesting a Board of Trustees meeting,” Pearson said.
Pearson continued, saying they’ve sat in conduct hearings where students have received conduct violations for protesting. They also mentioned that, while University administrators and football coaches “make millions of dollars, or half a million dollars,” the University hires contract employees for “$45,000, and has [them] teach more classes than tenure-line professors.”
The CI spoke with Sam Allen, who, in our interview, said they were one of the organizers who chalked 30 locations in two hours. Allen said organizers were making sure they were following the Policy.
“It was after we’re done that my buddy was on his way back and passed those people cleaning it up and asked them what they were doing,” Allen said. “And so, my takeaway from that is I think I actually underestimated how important this day is to [the University]. They’re willing to have employees, probably, watching the cameras 24/7 to see where we are chalking, to see if we chalked, and they’re also willing to send janitors out here at 11 p.m., and then, again, they sent a whole powerwashing truck out here at, like, 8 a.m. to the Scramble Light again.”
The CI also spoke with Clark Thornbury, who said the University “only cares about profit and keeping the status quo.”
“So, we are targeting the lifeblood of the University,” Thornbury stated. “Money. Profit. Students who are just coming here to make sure they don’t go here and are aware of the injustices and the evils that have been produced by this University.”
Thornbury called the University official’s framing of the chalking as graffiti “foolish.”
“I think it’s foolish,” Thornbury said. “Yet again, another great example of the University trying to twist words and make what should be simple rules into ammunition against their own students to silence us, should we say anything that goes against them. I think the fact that they’re willing to arrest people for chalk now is a gross injustice and a step too far.”
The demonstration remained peaceful. MIMS received an initial response from the Office of General Counsel on April 10th at 4:55 p.m.