University in Upstate New York Forces Activists Off Public Property by Claiming Eminent Domain
“A private university in upstate New York has been charged with yet another incident of censoring student expression, with student activists saying campus public safety officers forced them off public property by claiming eminent domain.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students said they were distributing anti-administration buttons on a public sidewalk outside a Feb. 24 hockey game, when RPI officials instructed them to relocate to a different street, asserting that university security commandeers jurisdiction of certain areas during sporting events.
The officers claimed streets under eminent domain were marked by police vehicles, but then insisted the students were not, in fact, permitted to stand on any public sidewalk unmarked by such a police presence, said student Michael Gardner.
Garder and Advaith Narayan, advocates with Save the Union, a coalition protesting the administration’s efforts to wrest control of the over 100-year old, powerful student union, agreed to move to the specific cross-street the officers named, but Gardner maintained that they should never have been asked to do so.”
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Frommer, Rachel. The Washington Free Beacon 7 March 2018.