Freedom of expression

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A couple of weeks ago I was going to a school football game and I was confronted by a man wearing a neon-green polo shirt that said “event staff.” I was wearing a shirt that had a buffalo on top of a ram. I don’t know how they ended up like that. Maybe they were wrestling.

The neon shirt told me that I could not wear my shirt into the game, and for some reason the police were on his side. “Freedom of speech,” I thought. When I accused the man of infringing upon my constitutional rights, he smirked. One of the officers said that I could wear my shirt in public, but not in a private event. Freedom of speech does not exist in private events. The football game was private.

I did have permission to wear my shirt anywhere in public. Maybe I could walk by a school or a shopping mall, some place where the obscenity of my shirt could be seen by all, young, old and in between. I did not, however, have permission to wear my shirt into a college football game, a place where half the crowd is drunk and the other half just decided to get high instead.

My shirt must have been offensive. This was implied by the way the officer informed me that “there are kids in there.” I had permission to wear the shirt in public, and there are definitely kids in public. Obscenity is alright in public, but not in a football game—a true, but strange and backward fact. The officer must have thought he was accomplishing some kind of good deed by denying me access to the game. He must have thought that the world would be a better place if nobody had T-shirts of the same nature as mine.

Could he be wishing that the world would be a better place if it was all as “private” as he claimed the football game to be? He was trying to do good by denying my entrance because of the nature of my shirt. My shirt therefore must have been bad. But I can wear it around schools and playgrounds. If the schools and playgrounds were private then I couldn’t wear my shirts around them. If everything was private the cop could keep me out of more places, making the world a better place. This is the totalitarian dream of the self-righteous officer of the law.

What about the Constitution? Apparently it does not apply in private enterprises. The self-evident rights, given to me by the forefathers of America, exist outside of football games but disappear once one walks through the cold, steel gates of the stadium. I was unaware that I was tacitly agreeing to forfeit my freedom of speech by going into a football game. I wonder what their stand is on freedom of religion. It would be wise not to fall into a discussion about spiritual matters the next time I go to a game.

Eventually I got into the game. I snuck the shirt in and put it back on once I was in the stands. Sometime during the third quarter I had to go to the bathroom. On my way I saw another neon shirt walking toward me with short quick steps. “Hey, what’s on that shirt?” he yelled pointing a finger at me. He stopped me and started to interrogate me. Before I knew it I was surrounded by neon green. I offered to buy a new shirt and put it on. The one I was wearing had started to grow holes, and it seemed about time for a new shirt anyway.

My offer was not good enough. They insisted that I remove my shirt right then and there in front of everybody; they also insisted that I throw my shirt in the trash. Forced stripping? I don’t know if the right not to is granted by the constitution. I don’t know if it even matters. Not seeing the reason for wanting to do what they instructed I chose to stay and argue. I told them they could not make me strip in public or force me to throw away my property. They eventually agreed to escort me to the shop where I could by a new shirt. But they didn’t do it happily.

After I got the shirt I figured I would put it on in the bathroom. After all I was on my way there and the interlude with the cops was only an obstacle in the way to achieving my goal. I went to the bathroom and locked the door. The neon shirt had followed me and was now standing guard on the other side of the door. I went about my business and started to think how to go about changing shirts. There were no shelves or hooks to put the other shirt down, and it took a moment to find something to use as a hanger.

There was a knocking at the door. “Hey man, you’ve been in there long enough.” It was the neon shirt, checking to make sure I had not blacked out at some point and become an inmate or some kind of prisoner of war. I laughed it off. He had no reason to shorten my stay in the bathroom, and I was pretty sure he would take no steps beyond knocking to hurry me up.

I knew that they were going to want me to throw out my shirt, but the shirt had some sentimental value and I was not willing to do that. They knew I was willing to argue and would not be easy with their demands. Eventually they let me hide the shirt outside the gates of the stadium and I was lucky enough that it was still there when I came back to retrieve it.

I felt like raising the shirt high up on a flagpole for everyone to see, but I have never been good at tying knots, and I think one would need to know such things to hang a flag. It came down to the fact that I wanted to watch the game, and in order to do that I was going to need to change my shirt. They had all the cards, but I was not in a mood to fold.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Seth Gitner at Seth.gitner@colorado.edu.