On Friday, March 7, students gathered around Hoeschler Tower to advocate for free speech and express their displeasure with recent comments President Trump made about protesting on college campuses.
President Trump made comments on his Truth Social account on Tuesday, March 4, saying he would stop federal funding for universities that allowed illegal protesting. For more information on what this could mean for UWL, click here.
The Racquet spoke with Hayley Leinss, a graduate student at UWL and one of the co-organizers of the protest, and asked what free speech means to her.
Leinss said, “Free speech is pretty self-explanatory, it’s the freedom to express your opinions, even if they’re not popular or if they’re going against what an authority figure is telling you, just the ability to express yourself.”
After getting her undergraduate degree at UW-Madison, Leinss experienced the power that free speech can have and the results that students raising their voices can achieve.
“I just really valued, as a student there, being able to witness the power that students organizing and raising their voices had,” said Leinss.
When asked about the difference between free speech on UW-Madison’s campus and UWL, Leinss said, “Madison kind of lends itself to being easier to demonstrate just because it’s such a large campus with so many undergraduate students. It spreads out and kinda infiltrates the city. Whereas UWL has a very specific campus and can feel kind of isolating.”
The Racquet asked Leinss what sparked her interest in holding this demonstration.
“I would say that this demonstration is a direct response to Trump’s Truth Social post,” Leinss said. “I don’t think it’s acceptable for anyone, let alone the President, to threaten anyone with deportation or expulsion because they exercised their right to free speech.”
“I noticed that nothing seems to be going on here at La Crosse and I wanted to give an outlet for those who feel strongly about free speech and other issues that have been going on lately and are wondering what to do about it,” Leinss said. “It’s so easy to be paralyzed by the chaos and just be overwhelmed, and that’s normal.”
Leinss said that they reached out to multiple student organizations, including both the UWL Democrats and UWL Republicans, and informed the university of their plans, for the demonstration to run as smoothly as possible.
“It’s for free speech. I feel like protecting our right to free speech is something that everyone, that all Americans, can get behind, and so hopefully this will be a bit of an olive branch between potentially different ideological opinions,” said Leinss.
The Racquet also reached out to Adeline Hendrix, a third-year at UWL majoring in archeology and history with a public policy emphasis, who was also involved in organizing the demonstration. The Racquet asked Hendrix about how the implementation of restrictions on free speech can hurt a college campus.
“It can lead to people feeling more divided,” said Hendrix. “One of the brilliant things about our event is that we invited UWL Republicans and UWL Democrats and we were able to all talk and have conversations, because one talking point we can all agree on is that we need free speech to further our agendas and political goals.”
“With everything going on in the world, it’s really nice to have a space where people can come together and just talk,” said Hendrix.
After the demonstration finished, Hendrix said, “I was really hoping for it to not be all one side of the political alley or all people there with one goal, and I was really happy to see that there were lots of different people there with different reasons.”
“I think a lot of great conversations were able to happen,” said Hendrix.
Hendrix and Leinss do not have any current plans for another demonstration but recommended calling your state representative or reaching out to the Dean of Students with any issues you would like to speak about.
