The “Free” Wall — How Procedure Strangles Expression at Pitzer
- Dhriti Jagadish
- 27 minutes ago
- 7 min read
The Free Wall’s History and Recent Controversy
Pitzer College’s Free Wall has recently become the canvas of controversial, back-and-forth messaging relating to the Israel-Hamas War. The wall, established in 2009 on the north side of Mead Residence Hall, is intended to be a space for student expression that bypasses approval from Pitzer’s Campus Aesthetics Committee and other administrative authorities.
“Students practice positive disruption. The free wall on Mead Hall, which evolves and changes in relation to the campus community climate, is the most evocative example of this spirit.”
Elizabeth Affuso
Media Studies Academic Director
On March 6, individuals painted the Free Wall with pro-Israel statements, including “Go to Gaza,” “Fuck Hamas,” and “Israel is not scared of yoy [sic].” These statements were painted over a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) mural that listed a set of “Demands,” including divestment from Israeli companies and weapons manufacturers.
The Free Wall was repainted once more on the evening of March 12 by members of Students for Effective Solidarity and Hope (SESH), a student activist group. According to a student member of SESH, Pitzer’s Office of Student Affairs (OSA) had been receiving complaints from community members that felt “threatened by the Zionist hateful graffiti.”
Later that night, individuals covered SESH’s repaint. The new messages read “Release the Hostages,” “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The People of Israel Live”), and, once again, “Fuck Hamas.”
A few hours later, in the midnight hours of March 13, SESH’s leaders sent a message to Pitzer’s Student Talk email thread, saying that the wall has “been defaced with messages of hate again” and that “the more you aggressively scrawl, the more you strengthen our argument.”
Past Controversy and New Oversight Measures
Controversy at the Free Wall is not new. In April 2023, OSA Vice President Sandra Vasquez directed the removal of SJP artwork following a student and faculty complaint that one of the Wall’s slogans—“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free”—was antisemitic. According to Vasquez, this complaint was the basis of OSA’s decision. However, Vasquez walked back this justification in an email sent two days after the artwork was removed, apologizing for OSA’s “error.”
Though Pitzer offered to reimburse SJP for costs associated with repainting their messages, the incident met the ire of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a campus free speech organization. FIRE argued that the removal of SJP’s artwork—the very involvement of administration to begin with—risked “produc[ing] a chilling effect on speech.”
OSA’s decision was castigated by the Pitzer Student Senate and in April 2023, they passed Resolution 5—a measure that outlined formal procedures for handling Free Wall complaints. Instead of soundly eliminating administrative involvement, the Resolution adds further layers of gratuitous oversight.
Resolution 5 requires the following procedure:
“And be it further resolved that when OSA supposes that a message or piece of art requires immediate attention or must be removed from the Free Wall, it must be communicated to the Student Senate Executive Board, Dean On-Call, and the Dean of Faculty.”
Before convening these authorities, OSA must provide a “risk assessment” of the Free Wall content in question. They operate under the guidelines that the Free Wall must not “offend, hurt the community, or its members in any way.” This includes a prohibition on “obscene” content (as determined by “community standards”), “specific threats or attacks,” or “incitements to violence,” as outlined in the Free Wall and Student Handbook guidelines.
Risk is determined through three categories: “grey, yellow, and red.”
Grey: If OSA is uncertain whether content breaks the aforementioned guidelines, they must consult the Student Senate Executive Board, the Dean On-Call, and the Dean of Faculty. These three groups—once two of the three decide whether to advise removal—must report their determination to OSA within 48 hours.
Yellow: If OSA believes content “likely” breaks the guidelines, OSA must immediately contact the Dean On-Call and the Student Senate President (or members of the Executive Board if the President is unavailable). The Dean On-Call and President provide authorization to remove the content. OSA can proceed with removal without authorization if the two parties do not respond within 8 hours.
Red: If OSA believes content “directly” breaks the guidelines, it can be immediately removed with the authorization of the Dean On-Call.
OSA must share photos of the disputed content to all parties for review. If OSA cannot reach these parties and decides to proceed with content removal, they must provide a public statement regarding their justifications for doing so.
The Free Wall on March 6
The pro-Israel statements painted March 6 kicked Resolution 5’s procedures into gear. Though it is unclear what color code this complaint received, the Independent was informed by a SESH member that—following the appearance of pro-Israel messages on March 6—the Pitzer administration was “going to paint the entire Free Wall white by [a certain] time tomorrow, unless people want to try and fix the mural.”
Muddying the waters further, when contacting the student representatives in accordance with Resolution 5, OSA did not merely email members of the Executive Board. An OSA representative told the Independent that OSA also contacted “other student leaders who had already been working on a project to improve the free wall policies and procedures.” Specifically, OSA reached out to Executive Board members as well as two student “Free Wall Project Co-Leads.”
The Free Wall Project Co-Leads are sponsored by a grant from the higher education non-profit Project Pericles—a partner organization of the American Association of Colleges and Universities—to fund campus projects that foster civic participation. According to a Co-Lead, the Free Wall Project intends to “start conversations about the free wall” through town halls and meetings with the Dean of Campus Life.
One of these Co-Leads also manages SESH—the activist group ultimately responsible for painting over the pro-Israel statements. SESH describes itself as a “care-centered organizing space” that hosts weekly discussions on campus change-making. This student leader, the Co-Lead and SESH manager, sent a March 11 email invitation for a SESH “repaint” of the Free Wall. She wrote that Pitzer administration had reached out to her and another Co-Lead about “covering the thing painted over sjp’s mural.”
This student leader told the Independent that the Pitzer administration was not involved in conferring or deliberating with SESH. After receiving word of complaints made to OSA, she decided “of [her] own accord” to organize her friends—some being SESH members—to cover the pro-Israel statements, making it so that “OSA did not have to step in.” The Student Senate confirmed in an email to the Independent, stating that “a group of Pitzer students decided to paint over the wall themselves.”
The Executive Board’s meeting minutes, which may have detailed any potential interaction between its members and the two Free Wall Project Co-Leads, have not been made public. Though the Student Senate Constitution (Article IV, Section 6.9b) requires “public distribution,” these minutes were not provided upon multiple requests.
The Free Wall Still Hostile to Free Expression
A private institution like Pitzer is not bound by the First Amendment. However, when the institution promotes a “Free Wall,” they must, at the very least, base their openness in some commitment to open expression. What better standard than the First Amendment?
Yet, few of the aforementioned “guidelines” for Free Wall content removal accord with the First Amendment—accord with the true meaning of free. It is correct that the First Amendment does not protect true threats, incitement to imminent lawless action, or obscenity. Even so, there are important tests to consider. For instance, what is deemed “obscene” has long been determined by the Miller test, with Pitzer’s “community standards” determination being far too vague. Most importantly, the First Amendment does not prohibit hate speech—speech that “offend[s]” or “hurt[s].” In line with the First Amendment, “From the River to the Sea” and “Go to Gaza”—both viewed as hate speech—are both protected.
Additionally, determining what constitutes “hate” is a futile endeavor since, as the Supreme Court once put it, “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” OSA has not demonstrated that it can apply their “risk assessment” as to what is hateful content in an impartial, objective manner.
One Jewish student leader at Pitzer told the Independent:
“I have met with admin numerous times about [Free Wall statements] saying ‘genocide’ and ‘from the river to the sea,’ and so have my friends. They told us they cannot make anyone take anything down and will not cover anything up.”
It remains unclear whether Resolution 5’s procedures were followed in response to these Jewish students’ concerns, as OSA did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment.
Given OSA’s track record, it seems prudent to eliminate administrative oversight altogether. Instead, Resolution 5 further tangled this web of oversight by adding student leaders to “check” the OSA. Yet, the student leaders responsible for writing and passing Resolution 5 did not so much affirm free expression as console SJP. For one, the measure lacks any semblance of content neutrality, asserting that it is a “display of ignorance” to believe that “From the River to the Sea” is an antisemitic sentiment and that “speech supporting the Palestinian struggle, Palestinian people, and their human rights is not categorized as hate speech or antisemitism.”
The Resolution also “thanks” SJP, commending its efforts in the face of an OSA decision that caused “widespread harm” to those affected by the “apartheid state of Israel” and the “IOF” (IOF—Israeli Occupation Forces—a pejorative for the Israeli Defense Forces). Because the Student Senate cannot be fair defenders of every student’s views, they should not be involved in authorizing any removal of speech.
OSA reaching out to the Free Wall Project Co-Leads is also dubious. For instance, one idea the Co-Leads wish to propose is a “Free Wall Caretaker program,” or people who offer paint supplies and accompany students if they are too afraid to paint their message. The plan is well-intentioned, with a Co-Lead stating that students should feel comfortable painting over messages they dislike instead of involving administration—“trust students to make their own decisions…with organized anarchy.”
Yet, when students become “first responders/creative facilitators” of a free space—especially if they would be funded by Pitzer’s Project Pericles grant—they threaten to chill any controversial, dissenting speech. Left in the hands of a few students, some messages will receive extra support, and potentially even institutional funding, while other messages will not. Project Pericles’s point of contact at Pitzer’s Community Engagement Center did not respond to comment on how ideologically diverse and well-attended the Free Wall Project’s town halls have been or how their Co-Leads were chosen.
It is doubtless that the Free Wall’s potential as a truly open, uncensored space has been constricted. OSA, Pitzer Student Senate, and the Free Wall Project seem to think little of students’ capacity to create and respond to speech without referees at every turn. And without this trust, the Free Wall is not so free.
Naya Dermenjian contributed reporting.