Before reading further, click here to see a picture of the flier posted last fall by a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

It's a simple advert for an upcoming campus talk to be delivered by Mason Weaver, conservative black activist and author of It's OK to Leave the Plantation. The talk itself was sponsored by the campus chapter of the College Republicans and the student government. Weaver's book argues that the American welfare system is a type of plantation system, and that dependence on the government effectively keeps blacks in a position of social and economic servitude.

According to yesterday's press release from FIRE, when College Republican Steve Hinkle tried to post these fliers in the campus Multicultural Center, all hell broke loose. Students who knew nothing of Mason Weaver saw Hinkle as a white male posting derogatory and offensive signs. They tried to stop him, going as far as calling in the campus police to report ìa suspicious white male passing out literature of an offensive racial nature.î Though they were in the wrong to try to stop Hinkle from posting fliers on a public notice board designated for that purpose, it was Hinkle who eventually faced charges.

Turns out the students he offended with his fliers were having a Bible study meeting at the time. Though they were doing so in a public lounge area, though Hinkle had every right to come into that area and post his signs, and though the Bible study group was not formally recognized by the school, Cal Poly administrators decided to bring charges against Hinkle for "disrupting" a "campus event."

A hearing was held in February. Hinkle was not allowed to have a lawyer, but he was tried nonetheless for his crimes, and he was found guilty. At the hearing, Hinkle was informed by the vice president for student affairs that ìYou are a young white male member of CPCR. To students of color, this may be a collision of experience.Ö The chemistry has racial implications, and you are naÔve not to acknowledge those.î In other words, the nature of Hinkle's "disruption" had nothing to do with content-neutral considerations of the timing and placement of his postings, and had everything to do with the fact that as a white male Republican, his physical existence was itself a form of harassment to minority students. That he chose to exacerbate his harassing personal characteristics by posting fliers advertising a conservative black author's campus visit only showed how deeply insensitive he was to others' need to be protected from his oppressive presence. Hinkle was ordered to write letters of apology to the students who had, in effect, harassed and censored him. He was advised that if he failed to do so in a manner that pleased the administration, he could face expulsion.

That was last spring. Hinkle has since taken his case to FIRE, which went public with the details yesterday after Cal Poly administrators failed to respond adequately to private attempts to resolve the issue fairly by pointing out to them their various violations of Hinkle's free speech and due process rights.

Eugene Volokh expresses provisional agreement with FIRE's claims, noting that if its representation of events is accurate, then Hinkle does indeed have himself a First Amendment case. Because FIRE's representation of events is at present the only one available on the web, the summary above is drawn from it and builds upon it. It's worth noting, though, that Cal Poly's University Counsel disputes FIRE's representation of the facts of the case--which is what one might expect.

If no new information comes to light, it would certainly seem that administrators at Cal Poly believe they are above the First Amendment and are therefore not bound to honor and uphold it. It would also seem that the students who brought the initial complaint and the administrators who pursued it are either too arrogant or ignorant to recognize the profound nature of their error: it is hardly Hinkle's fault that they did not recognize Mason Weaver's name or realize that the phrase "It's Okay to Leave the Plantation" was not Hinkle's exhortation, but Weaver's book title. In a perfect world, it would not be Hinkle who was sentenced to apologize, but the students and admins who have been hounding him who would be sentenced to attend Weaver's talk.

UPDATE 7/2/03: FIRE has published the police report detailing Hinkle's encounter with the complaining students.