Rights issues abound at MCC
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The First Amendment covers a lot of ground for just one sentence, I remember thinking during a grade-school American government class. A number of happenings at McHenry County College recently brought to life just how encompassing and complicated that sentence can be.
Last Thursday, the McHenry County College Board voted 4-3 to censure two of its trustees who spoke publicly against MCC's expansion plans.
Scott Summers and Donna Kurtz, the board's president and finance chair, respectively, had both been part of the board's unanimous vote in favor of MCC's plans to build a $26 million Health Wellness and Athletic Complex, which includes a 6,500-seat stadium that would be home to a minor league baseball team.
Months after the MCC board approved the project, the two trustees voiced concerns at an October Crystal Lake City Council meeting.
A resolution said the two trustees ignored the democratic rule of the majority by criticizing the project after a board decision had been reached.
"We need to be able to trust their votes," said Trustee Carol Larson, who voted in favor of the resolution.
Just the day before, members of Latinos Unidos, the college's Hispanic student organization, gathered hundreds of signatures from students who opposed the rental of college space to the Illinois Minuteman Project.
College President Walter Packard told the students that the college's conference center facilities can be rented by any organization that meets certain criteria. "If we start picking and choosing groups … you're going down a slippery path," Packard said.
However, as students gathered Friday evening to protest the event, they were blocked from traveling through the school's corridors by campus and minuteman security.
Students and some attendees called the school lockdown "strange" and "unfair."
The opportunity to voice their opinions to another group could have been a tremendous teaching opportunity, remarked Carlos Acosta of the Latino Coalition, who attended the event.
It's both ironic and fitting to me that such explosive First Amendment issues --freedom of speech and the right to assemble -- have come to a head at a place of learning.
Neither problem is solved, neither issue is over. But pushing aside politics and mudslinging for a moment, MCC is a place where individuals feel the right and need to speak their minds. For someone who's work is based on another part of that encompassing First Amendment -- the freedom of the press -- that's the bright spot from a complicated week.