At UTD, stickers about politics, clubs and ideas are found all over campus, particularly on the ubiquitous streetlight poles.
These stickers show the vibrancy and diversity of thought at UTD while providing a means of self-expression to students. Several common stickers at UTD include expressions of frustration with the current political climate, advertisements for certain campus organizations and those simply featuring a slogan or logo.
Stickers found around campus include those put up by the Red Rose Collective, the Revolutionary Communists of America, UTD admin and unknown students.
“They just kind of give students free rein to put the stickers or posters wherever, for the most part,” mechanical engineering freshman Mason Minton said. “It’s up to the students to position them correctly, and there’s not too much regulation on what they can put up. So I think it’s important for free speech.”
While Minton believed that students have free rein to put up stickers, others have had different experiences.
“We put them up in the Plinth before, and they don’t like that,” Red Rose Collective affiliate and senior history and philosophy major Demir Abushar said. “But ultimately, it’s a sticker, right? Like, there’s only so much they can do. But yeah, we certainly have had people be like finger waggy, whatever.”
The Red Rose Collective is an on-campus left wing organization. Their stickers covering LGBTQ+ rights, the Palestine debate, the Epstein files and ICE behavior have not gone unnoticed by UTD administration.
“We’ve been totally explicitly told we can’t put them up inside, that makes sense,” Abushar said. “But they usually do get a little antsy even about some outdoor locations, especially surrounding the admin building. I think that’s a result of all the chalking events we used to do there. I think that’s them kind of reiterating the policy that the admin building is sacred ground. It’s the palace of Prabhas Moghe, so nothing can happen there.”
Despite the trouble, Abushar stated that the stickers have helped grow their organization.
“Obviously, RRC is, like, the only left political organization on campus, so we’ve been trying to make people aware of us,” said Abushar. “I’d say it’s been successful. We’ve had a lot more people at this meeting than we have in the past.”
A majority of students interviewed said they have, at one point, wanted to put up stickers themselves.
“I personally am a Christian, so I was always thinking about putting up some stickers of that kind of nature,” Minton said. “If I’m ever a part of a club, I’d be so down to go out and put some club stickers out.”
Accounting junior Omar Rios described wanting to put up stickers because of recent actions by UTD admin.
“I don’t know if you know, but they removed the pride wall in SSA, and I thought that was kind of shitty,” Rios said. “So I was thinking, oh, we should put up pride stickers or something,”
On the topic of UTD administrative actions, Abushar said that the administration was less harsh on RRC’s stickers than some of their other activities, like chalking.
“We’ve, like, been told to not put stickers just arbitrarily,” Abushar said.” When that happens, we usually just wait and then put them up after the person in question is gone.”
Abushar clarified that there had never been verbal or written communication on the matter, but the admins’ intentions were clear through other cues, such as standing nearby and watching threateningly while the stickers were put up.
“Like, we’ll put up a sticker and then it’ll be gone in an hour, right?” Abushar said. “Anything that happens especially in proximity of the admin building goes away immediately.”
Amanda Smith, Dean of Students, declined to comment on the official UTD sticker policy.
One Comment
What’s the point of this without an actual picture of the stickers? Also we’ve had many stickers from orgs like the american blackshirts which couldve been good to mention