If any of you were out by the Union over the last couple of weeks you may have noticed the Right to Life chalk. The pro-life student group expressed an emotional argument by chalking a large number of hearts around the Maucker Union fountain and stating a figure about the number of abortions performed daily. If this chalking caught your eye, you may have also noticed the loud pro-choice chalking response that followed the Right to Life chalk. If you didn’t have a chance to see the response, it may be because the chalking was erased within the day.

First off, I want to use this opportunity to condemn erasing chalk that you don’t agree with. If you have taken Philosophy: The Art of Thinking then you may have read John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” and you may be familiar with this passage:

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

Mill is saying that those who censor opinions are robbing themselves of a chance to change their mind as well as deprive themselves of proper argumentation and dialogue, which he thinks is just as valuable as being “correct.” Whether or not you have read Mill or agree with him on other points, I think this point is fairly straightforward and incontrovertible.

The UNI Freethinkers & Inquirers often have pieces of their chalk erased. A popularly chalked phrase is “No God? No Problem.” The implication of the phrase is that it is okay to be an atheist. Given the wealth of religious groups on campus, such words of comfort might need to be heard by someone who does not have religion in their lives. Regardless, often the word God is erased or smudged, making the phrase meaningless.

Now that you know how I feel about erasing chalk, it is actually possible that the University, not students, erased the pro-choice chalk. It is against University policy to have chalk on campus without representation, which was the case in question.

In light of this fact, it is conceivable that the University, on the grounds of their policy, erased the pro-choice response. I wonder, though, why now? On any given day there are dozens of unrepresented chalk messages advertising casual events of all sorts: “House dinner!” or “FREE PIZZA [place] [time]”. If the University did in fact erase the pro-choice chalk, I am lead to believe that the University is being terribly inconsistent about enforcing their policy. If chalk without representation is prohibited, then the University should not pick and choose how it is enforced based on the gravity of the message being chalked. I am fine with a blanket policy that results in swift removal of unrepresented chalking. However, I will not stand behind a policy that acts when called upon to remove a single offender among many.

But, I do not want to spend my time crying for help and pointing fingers. Instead, I would like to make a call to action. Engage with the dialogue. Enter the discussion. If you see chalk that you disagree with, erase not. Borrow chalk from campus resources, chalk your views clearly however they come to you, and sign your name so that the University has no reason to erase it. Either do this, or do nothing.

Whatever the case, do not commit the intellectual crime of censorship. The moment you silence the argument of another you have revealed that you are incapable of defending your own views, either by the fault of your views or by your own inability to defend them.