Students campaigning for both sides of last week’s sports and recreation referendum were met with resistance when their posters, funded with university money, were ripped down by fellow students.
“We’ve lost a poster that was worth about $200, and it was a really huge, huge poster,” said Amanda Cupido, who was part of the Yes campaign group.
“It probably got a day’s worth of being put up,” she said.
The Yes side won by a margin of nearly three to one, but during the campaign both sides complained of having their posters torn down or defaced.
Catherine Redmond, the university’s returning officer, responded by sending out a mass email warning students that defacing posters is prohibited, and punishable under the Student Code of Non-Academic Conduct.
Frank Whitestone, who helped represent the No side, struggled against vandalism for the whole campaign.
The team only got its funding in time to get posters up by March 15.
“Half of those posters were torn down by (the next) morning,” Whitestone said.
Whitestone said he feels that the vandalism prevented the campaign from being fair and balanced.
“There’s two sides to the story, and they have far more posters than we do, far more people out campaigning and doing stuff. Even with that fact out there these posters are still being torn down, and stickers being stuck on them,” he said.
On some No campaign posters, a “Vote Yes” sticker was stuck over the part of the poster that was supposed to say “Vote No.”
“I don’t know where these Yes stickers come from,” Whitestone said. “I guess they come from people campaigning for the Yes team. I guess it’s better than tearing them down, but it’s . . . sort of in violation of the rules.”
Cupido said that all of the people she worked with in the campaign abided by the rules and did not damage or deface posters.
She said that both sides played fair, and that the vandalism was probably committed by passionate supporters.
“I feel that it’s people that feel really strongly about it and then take it upon themselves to rip it down,” she said.
Cupido also said that some of the vandalism could just be random mischief, especially in places like the Ram in the Rye.
“All that I can ask is that people respect the work and effort it takes for us to put up these posters,” she said. “And even if they feel strongly about these, showing respect is one of the most important things when it comes to referendums and other things that people are campaigning for on campus.”
Tearing down or defacing campaign material counts as damage and destruction of property under the Ryerson University Student Code of Non-Academic Conduct.
The punishment is left up to the discretion of the student conduct officer.
