Wash U Charges Conservative Student Group $846 For Random Graffiti On Campus
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, December 4, 2009, 4:58 AM
John Burns from Campus Gulag passed this on:
Last night I got an email from the student leader, Dirk, over at Washington University in St Louis.
The campus cops submitted an invoice to the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) students for $846 in one lump sum, rather than presenting a line item invoice. I have attached the invoice. It’s absurd, and I hope all can view it to see how absurd it is.
Backstory:
Somebody took a can of spray-chalk (the spray that the gas company might use to mark your lawn) and, using a stencil, spray-chalked a small image of a hammer and sickle on the sidewalk of the campus quad a few dozen times.
The university had the lawn mowing company they had contracted to mow the lawn (subcontractors using mexican labor)hook up hoses to wash away the images from the sidewalk the at precisely the same time as the YAL students at Wash U and I were erecting the gulag on the quad.
The university, failing to find out exactly who is responsible for the spray-chalking, is holding the YAL students responsible for it. The Campus cops have repeatedly used words like felonious property damage (because the ‘damage’ is in excess of $750, which is a Class D felony in Missouri) in order to intimidate the students and are holding that over the heads of the students like the Sword of Damacles if the students refuse to pay up.
There are several important points to keep in mind here, I think.
1) The students had nothing to do with the spray-chalking.
2) The students are ENTIRELY INNOCENT.
3) The university has ZERO evidence that the students sprayed anything. From what the students have said to me, the campus cops have a video of someone spraying, but they have checked it out and it is NOT any of the YAL students.
4) Spray-chalk is water soluable. And with the 5 straight days of heavy rains that came just days after the 9th, the images would have been naturally washed away. So, it was totally unnecessary for the university to wash them away.
5) The invoice is total CRAP. The workers who washed away the images with GARDEN HOSES were paid at best $8 an hour. For the bill to be in excess of $800 means that the university is claiming that the subs who washed it away took 100 man hours to wash the images away. 100 man hours is the equivalent of 2 and a half WEEKS of work for ONE man!!! Washing away some chalk takes SECONDS!
6) The university, in claiming such bogus damages is committing fraud. This behavior against powerless students is absolutely shameful.
7) The UNIVERSITY IS ENGAGING IN MALICIOUS, RETALIATORY ACTION AGAINST THE STUDENTS for their GULAG demonstration. The main lesson other students are to take away from this is that speech on campus which is contrary to the pleasure of the administration will be met with severe prejudice. This certainly will have a CHILLING EFFECT on student speech.
Cheers,
Jonathon
** You can help these students out by donating here.
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Beto Ochoa commented:
If this was mailed to them they should contact the USPS. Mailing a fraudulent invoice of this sort is covered under Title 18, part 1, chapter 63, subsection 1341.
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation occurs in relation to, or involving any benefit authorized, transported, transmitted, transferred, disbursed, or paid in connection with, a presidentially declared major disaster or emergency (as those terms are defined in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122)), or affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.
Beto Ochoa commented:
If this was hand delivered it is still fraud and official oppression. This has the letterhead of the University, which a representative of the State.
If it was done as the result of two or more people it is a conspiracy.
John commented:
Beto,
how could the students pursue the matter of the fraud legally? Interested in your thoughts.
J
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Beto Ochoa commented:
They need to contact their postmaster and file a complaint with the USPS investigative services.
Lady Logician commented:
Man what is in the water down there? The same thing happened to my husband at Lindenwood (St Charles MO) when we were in college. Someone lit something on fire in their dorm during spring break. The fire didn’t take but it singed 1 floor tile. Rather than find out who had started the fire, the college sent every guy who was in the dorm that week (about 8 of them) a bill for “damages” that put together totaled over $1000 – FOR 1 SINGED TILE! They took the school to court and WON so these kids have precedent. I wonder if my husband remembers the name of the lawyer who represented them…..
LL
manateespirit commented:
Good luck to the students. I’m not a lawyer but I could organize a bunch of middle aged moms to protest Wash U.
Guess I’m finding my second career as a community organizer! Wish I could get paid!
janet commented:
Assuming all of this is true, these students must contact FIRE (http://www.thefire.org/) NOW.
FIRE helps students protect their rights when falsely accused of whatever. It is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. They will always help conservative students.
Contact them now.
chuck in st paul commented:
Seems to me they have grounds to file extortion charges against the school and the people who sent the demand.
Sequoia commented:
If these kids don’t get legal remedy, where do I send the check? This from a university w/a BILLION dollar endowment.
IOpian commented:
Hopefully there is a lawyer willing to file defamation against the university for tens of thousands of dollars on a contingency basis.
Would love to see this backfire on the university.
Van commented:
“The main lesson other students are to take away from this is that speech on campus which is contrary to the pleasure of the administration will be met with severe prejudice.”
And that lesson needs to be taught LOUDLY, this one, like Gladney, seems to me to be a teachable moment, wrapped and topped with a bow just in time for Christmas.
As mentioned above, FIRE and Mail fraud should be pursued, with perhaps some Tie-Cam work. Does Breitbart have a ‘Big University’?
“This certainly will have a CHILLING EFFECT on student speech.”
Only if we let it, on the other hand, it may be just the thing to put wackedemia on the boil!
Sarge commented:
A shameful and quite possibly fraudulent abuse of power. I agree that the proper approach would be to file criminal fraud complaints and also to file for tort damages – - force these administrative bullies to prove their argument before a judge they cannot browbeat.
While you’re at it, sue whoever teaches English Comp on that campus.
Andreas K. commented:
Yeah, we have a similar situation here right now.
The Audimax, biggest auditorium on campus here in Vienna, is currently being occupied by a handful of leftists who “fight for all students”.
That way they just totally fu***d up exams, because that auditorium is used a lot in written exams, because it’s so big. Now all faculties have to move to different places, because nobody in the university’s leadership has the balls to clear the place. Instead… they negotiate.
I’m a student right now (not a beginner anymore, but still, I count as well.) These asshats don’t speak for me. And I’m angry. I was supposed to have an exam there on Saturday, now it’s not possible and our professor is frantically trying to find a different place (just like every other professor.)
Fuc***g leftards.
It’s really like that. If you’re a leftard, you can get away with anything in our education systems. If you’re conservative, you’re a nazi and a racist and whatever else. Hell, even as libertarian you’re a nazi these days. Everything that is not left wing is “evil”. A conservative student league celebrated their anniversary a few weeks ago, and all the leftards in our students’ union went nuts over it. “NAZIS!”
I’m not just mildly annoyed anymore.
Solaratov commented:
I think the YFL should call the universtty’s bluff – and simply refuse to pay the invoice What the univ. has done is akin to the police arresting any random pedestrian for a bank robbery, without any sort of proof. I’m sure that one (at least) of the YFL members has a lawyer in the family who’d love to get a rep for taking down the school over this.
They should, indeed, contact FIRE immediately, also. As well as filing fraud charges with the USPS. And, they should contact the Missouri attorney general’s office about filing charges, too.
Crap like this cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged. If it was a leftoid group, they could have blown up the sidewalks with impunity because the univ. is afraid of them.
The school needs to become as afraid of Conservative groups – not because of the threat of destruction, but because of the promise of legal retribution.
C-Christian Soldier commented:
SUE the
U..
The students must organize–find an advocate attorney group – and sue !!!
The ‘other side’ sues all of the time’!!!
Our side does not—how come!?
No longer abide by alinsky’s RULE–# 5 –
Conservative Students—Demand your First Amendment rights…
John commented:
Manateespirit and anyone else who would like to help: please contact me, John burns at campusgulag@GMAIL.com
thank you! Look forward to hearing from you!
John
maria commented:
Why does nobody mentioned the pig who did the graffiti in the first stage? Why is the school responsible for paying the bill. The pig should stay with a toothbrush and clean up his mess.
southdakotaboy commented:
What needs to be done is for the local tea party people to organize a protest against the school. Or if not organize it atleast help get it going.
We conservatives need to start showing up enmass on these campuses whenever crap like this happens.
I also agree that we need to sue these guys and report them to the USPO for fraud. Even if they lose the case just dragging it into court will be bad PR for the school.
George B commented:
Thanks to this article I now know spray chalk exists. I can think of lots of opportunities to “tag” government buildings, but I would never even think of causing permanent damage. However, opposition chalk marking of government buildings seems like appropriate free speech. As a bonus, at several locations SEIU janitor thugs will be the ones tasked with washing it away.
Jonathan Katz, Professor of Physics, WU commented:
This sounds like the bullies in our administration. A few years ago they forbade any student or professor to speak to a reporter without an official minder present.
Don’t these clowns realize that the people spraying hammers and sickles are probably communist sympathizers, not opponents? Of course they do—this is just an excuse to bully conservatives. (Conservatives? I thought everyone opposed Stalin’s murder of tens of millions in the gulag. Doesn’t liberalism support human rights? It used to. Not in the WU administration, however…these people aren’t liberal, they are totalitarian.)
Spray chalk is frequently used by student government candidates, etc., without any objection. It washes off in the rain; there is no property damage and its use is not vandalism.