Brookhaven Courier

Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Samantha Nickel Demonstration sign created by the Brookhaven Amnesty Peace and Justice club

Media Credit: Samantha Nickel Amnesty Peace and Justice club members Britton Walker, Matthew Stepanek, and James Magruder

Students and faculty might have missed it, but Oct. 1 there was a Jena Six sign taken down by the Brookhaven College Police Department.

The sign was put up by the Amnesty Peace and Justice club and stated "Justice for the Jena Six" and "Is this the Democracy we are Exporting?" Hanging from the signs were three nooses colored red, white and blue.

Police Chief Dave Reagan said the sign was removed at the request of Brookhaven administration.

James Magruder, a club member and sound-recording technology sophomore, said the sign was a protest regarding the events in Jena, La.

In December 2006, six black males were charged with attempted second-degree murder in Jena for beating a white student. This attack was a result of racial tensions that had escalated after white students hung nooses from a whites-only tree and invoked fights.

Magruder said the sign was put up in protest of the black males getting harder sentences than white males who did similar things.

Dr. Claude Caffee, vice president for student development, said the sign was removed because of a lack of communication between himself and the Police.

Caffee said the students should follow certain guidelines in order for the sign to stay up.

He said it should have been removed at night and put back up in the morning, there should have been a Web site where students and faculty could get more information and there needed to be a club member present at the sign at all times to explain what it meant to those who asked.

He said these conditions were not met and that is why he did not stop the Police from removing the sign. Caffee said he and the Police received complaints about the sign but those complaints did not factor into its removal.

Matthew Stepanek, a club member and pre-law sophomore, said the group has not seen any formal written complaints regarding the sign, and all the guidelines set forth by Caffee were met by the club.

He said hanging the nooses from the sign were the most powerful symbols.

"It's [the nooses] something that people definitely have to react to," Stepanek said. "They can't ignore it and that's the sign of good activism. If it did upset anybody I think it was probably an immediate reaction to something they saw, which forced an emotional reaction from them."

Stepanek said the problem was probably that people were not trying to understand why the emotional reaction happened and the greater issue behind it.

Magruder and Stepanek both said the group will not give up the fight to have this sign displayed on campus. They said the removal of the sign goes against the principle of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Caffee said at this point there is no way the sign will go up again.

"I don't think it will go back up," Caffee said. "Based on the sponsor's comments, I think they've done what they wanted to do. … Now does this mean Amnesty International will not continue the civil rights fight for people? That's part of their objective."

He said since Amnesty International is a campus club, administration fully supports it.

Stepanek said: "As a student group we'd all enjoy having the administration as kind of a helping hand and ally to change awareness. … We are just trying to spread understanding."

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