Carolina Students for Life, an organization for anti-abortion students at UNC, was responsible for the chalking. Grace Garner, the organization’s president, said members sought to spread awareness about the help available to women facing unplanned pregnancies.
“What we are wanting to do is to let women know that there are resources out there for them,” Garner said.
Members of Students United for Reproductive Justice, a UNC organization that supports abortion rights, mopped up most of the messages, which covered bricks around the Pit, Davis Library and Polk Place.
The group’s co-chairperson, Jen Myers, said erasing the messages wasn’t a question about protecting or suppressing free speech, but rather ensuring students felt safe on campus.
“I think a lot of what was written was really triggering and not safe for folks to read,” Myers said. “With the free speech issue, yeah, it’s legal, but why are you going out of your way to make people unsafe, especially if you value life so much?”
Cathy Packer, co-director of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, organizes UNC’s First Amendment Day. She said erasing the messages did not infringe on First Amendment rights.
“The question is, do you have a First Amendment right to do it in the first place?” she said. “Do you have a First Amendment right to chalk on government property? My guess would be maybe not. In a university, it’s a little less clear.”
Garner, of the anti-abortion group, said a more productive response would have been to start a conversation on both sides of the issue rather than eliminating the anti-abortion arguments.
