Allgood Hall ambushed with anti-vaccine stickers throughout building
By Chris Rickerson | Staff writer
Augusta University students and faculty were surprised entering Allgood Hall on Thursday morning, July 22, finding anti-vaccine stickers displayed throughout the building.
One sticker said: “If you’re afraid of me because I’m unvaccinated, does that mean your vaccines don’t work?”
The stickers, found on classroom doors and in bathrooms in Allgood Hall, included the name The White Rose with a QR code.
The White Rose has an Instagram account with 1,330 followers.
The White Rose stickers have been seen in Great Britain and Canada. Historically, the White Rose was an anti-fascist group in Nazi Germany.
Amanda Main, administrative assistant in the Department of Communication at AU, was the first person to see the stickers in Allgood Hall early that morning.
“I noticed them in the bathroom, and it made me upset and immediately I ripped them down,” said Main.
Main said she did this because a family member of an AU staff member had recently passed away due to COVID-19 and didn’t want to make the colleague distressed by the messages.
Students at AU also noticed the stickers in building. One of the students was junior Dee Mallory, a chemistry major at AU.
“Being a vaccinated person, it was kind of astonishing to see,” said Mallory “As a student and a representative of the student body, I am always an advocate of people sharing their own opinions and using their First Amendment rights, but I feel like some type action or maybe education on the subject should happen.”
Freedom of speech was one of the topics raised with this situation. AU has a student manual on the university’s website. Page seven, section 1.2 states:
“Members of the university community may distribute non-commercial written materials on a person-to-person basis in open outdoor areas of the campus. An individual who is not a member of the university community may only distribute written materials within the Public Forum Areas and only during the time in which the individual has reserved the Public Forum Area. Designated building coordinators, or other University officials may designate areas in classrooms and or in or around university buildings for students or student organizations who wish to post handbills, posters, flyers, banners, signs, and other similar items on campus. However, the university prohibits the posting or display of these items by students or student organizations outside of these designated areas, including on the exterior of any University building, telephone/utility pole, tree, sidewalk, window, trash can, or any other exterior surface located on the campus, including vehicles.”
Dr. Debra van Tuyll, retired AU communication professor, considered the situation and if freedom of speech applied.
“Policies at AU right now are if they would have put flyers on bulletin boards, they would have no problem at all,” said Van Tuyll, who taught media law for several decades at the college level. “The fact they are stickers may upset some people, and they may not be looking at the content, but the method of the communication and its destructive ability.”
Christine Engel, vice president of Division of Communications and Marketing at AU, spoke about the posted stickers for the university with the following the statement:
“As a university community, we respect the rights and opinions of others, protected in the constitutional right of free speech,” said Engel. “Foundational to that right is an individual responsibility to consider the appropriate forum for public expression in a way that allows for civil discourse, rather than the deliberate destruction or defacement of public materials or property."
The person or persons who did this is still unknown, but a police report was made that morning, and they are keeping an eye out on campus.
The notes were posted using an adhesive.
More than 625,000 Americans have died of COVID-19.
Contact Chris Rickerson at crickerson@augusta.edu.
