UMass has put policies on rallies that FIRE thinks to be absurd. The first aspect of the policy is that students need to plan rallies 24 hours in advance. FIRE feels that this limits the students to be able to react to the current world.
Personally I do not know if I fully agree with FIRE on that because I know that the University is looking out for the students best interest. Yes, it does alter the students reaction time, but the University just wants to be able to have security there to keep from something absolutely tragic happening.
FIRE has a problem with UMass' definition of rallies- "events where people freely assemble around a common cause(s) and/or point(s) of advocacy." Obviously UMass made the definition so broad because of the many cases where they may have to defend themselves against rallies. As a UMass student, I see both sides as to why the school would need to restrict the rallies, especially after seeing the rally videos post-superbowl.
I do agree with the fact that UMass cannot restrict the students to where they protest or rally. Only giving the Student Union steps to the students during a certain number of hours is not enough. The steps are large, but they aren't that large.. With over 20,000 students, where do you expect all of them to stand. What if the majority of the school actually wants to participate in a specific rally? That is just making the steps an extremely dangerous place for the UMass students, isn't it?
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