It’s a beautiful time of year—the leaves are starting to turn red, there’s events popping up all around Ottawa, and pro-vegan advertising is everywhere on campus.
In case you missed seeing the chalk messages saying something along the lines of “fish are friends, not food,” it’s outside the University Centre, in the quad, and even off campus by Bronson and Sunnyside. Of course, a lot of people are expressing their annoyance with this so-called “vegan propaganda.” They say that vegans shouldn’t be allowed to promote around campus.
It may be difficult to face this vegan message on the pavement as you walk out of the cafeteria with a chicken-bacon-ranch poutine, or whatever meaty dish you may have. However, it’s just as difficult to walk through the atrium and pass the cardboard cut-out of the pope while wearing a hijab.
The conversation surrounding the pro-vegan messages on campus raises the question of what students label propaganda and what they allow to be promoted on their campus. You don’t overhear students referring to the pope cut-out as “Christian propaganda.” The label of propaganda only seems to stick to groups that oppose traditional societal structures, like veganism, or feminism.
With various critiques of “safe space,” one would think that anyone would be allowed to promote what they believe in the public spaces on campus. But it seems the same people who argue that “safe spaces” violate freedom of speech attempt to censor certain groups from promoting themselves in public spaces.
If we are to consider the pro-vegan sentiments as propaganda, that means we must see every club or society that promotes itself on campus through tabling, posters, chalk messages, or stickers as also perpetuating propaganda. By this logic, no group should be allowed to promote itself at Carleton University.
Carleton sororities and fraternities are also struggling with promoting their groups on campus, as they were banned from tabling in Residence Commons and the atrium because of complaints that they are “too exclusive.” This is interesting, as Carleton sports teams and clubs are still allowed to promote themselves, despite also being highly exclusive by nature.
Whatever concerns people have when walking past these groups during promotion season, it’s a violation of free speech to ban them entirely. You don’t have to agree with what a group is promoting. You can express your annoyance and frustration at their presence. You can duck your head and walk quickly past so they don’t catch you and try to “convert you” to their side. You can even criticize the message the group is spreading. But if you say that a group is not allowed to promote its message in public, you are simply censoring your classmates.
