The campus abortion rights group H-yas for Choice has claimed that its right to free speech was curtailed when university maintenance workers removed 340 black flags from Red Square on Monday.
Maintenance staff removed the flags, hung between a tree and the clock tower, around 10 a.m. According to H-yas for Choice, each flag represented 200 women who die annually from complications from botched abortions in countries where abortion is illegal.
The H-yas for Choice web site expressed anger because a Right to Life banner remained hanging in a tree on Copley Lawn until Monday afternoon.
According to both the H-yas for Choice web site and Right to Life member Bridget Bowes (COL ‘07), Georgetown maintenance asked Right to Life to remove its banner around 10 a.m. as well. Bowes said that Right to Life was slow to take its banner down because they needed a ladder, but a member succeeded in climbing the tree to take down the banner in the early afternoon.
According to Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson, the maintenance staff acted according to policy.
“It is the case that hanging banners or ropes from or between trees is not permitted [in Red Square],”Olson said in an e-mail, adding that both groups had been asked to remove their respective flags and banner.
H-yas for Choice board member Molly Tafoya (COL ‘07), however, said that board members in Red Square were never approached by maintenance. Tafoya believes that Monday’s events would have been different if the University formally recognized H*yas for Choice.
Tafoya also said that the H-yas For Choice board does not wish to argue over the specifics of why Right to Life’s banner was left hanging.
“There is a bigger issue to address here. This is about us being treated as equal on campus,” Tafoya said.
H-yas for Choice board members plan to react by challenging their group’s status as an unofficial Georgetown organization.
“We are going to create a petition to send around to students, faculty, alumni and parents requesting some sort of recognition by the University,” Tafoya said.
Red Square is the only place on campus where the group can speak freely, a fact Tayofa said she questions as well.
The administration, however, continues to insist otherwise.
“The request to remove the banners was not about content, but rather about the appropriate time, place and manner for students to express their views,” Olson said.
