Red Square, Georgetown’s designated free-speech zone, was the center of controversy Friday when two groups of Georgetown students staked out the area. One group chalked up Red Square and posted flyers reading, among other things, “There are Gay Hoyas, too” and “There are Lesbian Hoyas, too.”
These same students set up a table in Red Square throughout the day on Friday. Their purpose was to raise the visibility of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students on campus?not just to current students, but also to the prospective students and their parents participating in the year’s first Georgetown Admissions Ambassador Program.
A second group of students didn’t agree with this first demonstration. They found it tacky, disrespectful or otherwise offensive. These students posted their own flyers with messages such as, “There are Democratic Hoyas, too” and “There are Protestant Hoyas, too.” Even more vocal were students who held up signs near the ICC entrance, saying “We are men who like women” and passing out their own flyers.
No matter which group you might side with, the community should be proud of what happened Friday in Red Square. According to Georgetown’s Speech and Expression Policy, “the area adjacent to the ICC (Red Square) shall be available, without prior arrangement, for individuals and groups during daylight hours for the purpose of exchanging ideas.” The demonstrations and counter-demonstrations may have been offensive to some, but ultimately they were a loud and visible reminder of our right and obligation as students: to debate, to protest and to fight for what we believe in.
We should be less proud, however, of other things which happened. For instance, GLBT supporters who chalked Red Square late Thursday stayed up all that night to guard their work, fearing that drunk and/or belligerent passers-by would wipe away their chalk or rip down their signs. This fear, sadly, appears to have been well-founded: Organizers say that a handful of people tried to deface their work even in their presence.
Students showed this Friday the premium our community places on the free exchange of ideas during daylight hours. We will have achieved something even more remarkable when we can say the same thing when the lights are off.
