After a month of waiting, students at the University of Kansas decided once again to take to the streets and protest KU Housing’s silencing of student voices and the recent termination of Grace Pearson Hall’s proctor Anthony Alvarez. Students from various different KU dorms and scholarship halls joined to show their support.
GPeeps for GIA, an organization consisting of Grace Pearson residents and supporters of gender inclusive assignments, posted numerous fliers around campus in protest to Alvarez’s termination from KU Housing and to advertise the protest. Mirroring the posters were two recent fliers created by Turning Point USA, which advertise Riley Gaines’ April 9 visit to KU. Gaines is a conservative activist who opposes the participation of trans women in sports after having tied against a trans woman in a swim competition.
Alvarez was first put on probation for speaking to the media about his experience as the proctor of Grace Pearson and his reassignment to a different hall. The reason for his reassignment, he explained, was heard through word of mouth: that he would not properly enforce gender-segregated policies. He was subsequently terminated for helping hang a banner in the entrance window of Grace Pearson Hall.
After KU Housing removed a banner with the phrase “We are all Jayhawks,” fashioned in the colors of trans and non-binary identities, residents agreed that their First Amendment rights were potentially being suppressed. Along with this, Housing demanded numerous sticky note and poster designs advocating for the retention of gender inclusive assignments be removed.
“People took them down because they didn’t want to get in trouble initially,” said Michael Hanzelka, a resident of Grace Pearson. “We ended up all putting them back up after reviewing the Student Conduct Code and deciding that what we were putting up in our windows did not violate that based on the language that was there.”
Hanzelka mentioned that residents at Grace Pearson have spoken to law professors about their rights to free speech, in which they explained that KU, by enforcing the removal of these expressions, have created a limited public forum because of their inability to enforce the policy consistently across campus.
According to Michael Wieber, president of Grace Pearson, in the past, students have posted sticky notes designs on the windows of their dorm rooms without complaint from housing. Another instance would be Rieger Hall, an all-women’s scholarship hall at KU, having had banners in their windows without complaint throughout the school year. Thus, this brings about the argument that dorm windows are, in fact, public forums.
“I considered KU a safe space for the first year and a half that I’ve been going here,” Hanzelka said. “We’ve all been very upset about both the way that they’re dehumanizing us by enforcing these policies and also the way that they’re restricting our ability to express our desire to protect our own people.”
Meghan Arias, a junior at KU, expanded on the “dehumanizing” factor of housing’s newest policies regarding gender inclusive assignments.
“[KU Housing] decided to enforce a report-based bathroom system in which they require housing staff members to report people for using the ‘wrong bathrooms,’ as well as encouraging residents to report each other for ‘wrong bathroom’ usage,” Arias said.
Along with this, the threat of conduct hearings and notices of concern loom in the distance with these new policies. Students are unaware of whether they will be the next to receive an email from housing regarding potential violations.
“I’m ashamed to be a Jayhawk,” Arias said.
Her reasons were that KU, less than a month into Trump’s presidency, has decided to remove inclusivity in the scholarship halls and information about inclusive restrooms on campus. Along with this, she lists the defunding of several clubs and research and KU Housing and Residence Life’s lack of support for residents.
“They have not shown that they want to fight against this with us,” Arias said. “They’re choosing to fight our free speech by giving students conduct cases for sticky notes in their windows, which is a ridiculous waste of tuition dollars.”
However, despite a previous protest, a resolution passed by the student senate to reverse the ban and even concerns of First Amendment violations, KU Housing has still not spoken on the issue.
Organizers of the event handed out sunscreen for people under the bright sun. A table at the edge of the protest contained boxes of trans flags, art supplies for creating more signs and pins. “Keep KU Inclusive” and “GIA For GP” with a pastel pink and blue heart in the center were just some of these designs. Pride was central to the event, as students not only waved trans flags in their hands but donned it as a cape.
Edited by Jeremy Ford.
