Administration pulls 'Love' posters

Three days after the Pride Alliance posted 1,000 gay-themed Valentine's Day fliers across campus, the complaints of a few students prompted Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne to order the posters' removal from public spaces.

The posters showed same-sex couples kissing under the slogan "Love = Love" and were meant to "raise awareness that LGBT love is one kind of love," Pride Alliance president Claire Woo '06 said.

Among the students who filed complaints was John Andrews '05, who noted in an e-mail to Dunne that the lack of attribution on the posters violated school policy.

Andrews cited a regulation in "Rights, Rules, Responsibilities" stating that "public postings without sponsorship of a registered University organization shall be removed or deleted" if a student objects.

Although the posters did not print the name of the group that sponsored the campaign, the Pride Alliance took the credit on its website and in interviews with The Daily Princetonian.

Andrews, an outspoken conservative and former editor of the Princeton Tory, a conservative student publication, said his complaint was not motivated by his personal views on the matter.

"Content aside, this is an issue of procedural fairness," Andrews said. "There has to be equal application of the rules."

In response to the complaints, Dunne directed groundskeepers on Wednesday to remove the posters.

"I agree this is a close reading of ["Rights, Rules, Responsibilities"] but the students filing complaints argued that the posters are anonymous to those who encounter them on campus," Dunne said in an email. "I obviously would support the posting of these signs if the Pride Alliance submitted a similar poster with attribution."

Pride Alliance members expressed disappointment with the posters' removal, but agreed that they should have included attribution. "Rules are rules," Pride Alliance Publicity Chair Lispeth Nutt said. "I can't blame [Andrews] for being clever. It's a technicality, a technicality that he wants to use for another end."

"But by the time he asked to take them down, plenty of posters had been taken down already," Nutt added. "It was a little too after-the-fact to have an effect."

Nutt said that by Tuesday, many of the posters were "selectively ripped down or postered over."

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"There were definite patterns," Nutt said. "Women kissing had a much better chance of staying up than men kissing, especially young blonde women and Asian women. By the end of the day, it was like one big fantasy world. It was disappointingly predictable."

Dunne called the destruction of the posters "a very disturbing trend."

"It is deeply disappointing to think individuals would tear down signs they find offensive," he said. "I've talked with students in the Pride Alliance and other groups about this issue, and we hope to come up with an effective strategy to eliminate this type of vandalism."

Campus response to the posters was indicative of lingering homophobia, Woo said. "I thought the campaign was pretty benign," she said. "But people are intolerant of LGBT imagery. [Pulling down posters] is a form of censorship, and it shouldn't be tolerated."

Though Pride Alliance officers considered adding the name of their organization to the signs and reposting them, they ultimately decided to "wait for another opportunity," Nutt said, adding, "This project was about as successful as we could have expected. And [Andrews] is just raising its profile even further, so I can't be all that upset."