Guerrilla activists strike on Chico State campus

This story was updated at 4 p.m. today to include the university’s response.

Three hundred flyers suddenly appeared on campus doors at Chico State University last week, warning that law enforcement officers – a reference to immigration agents — would only be allowed in classrooms and other “private spaces” if they possessed judicial warrants.

“CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION” warns a flyer banner highlighted in yelllow. The flyer then notes that a classroom is a “private space” with entry restricted to faculty, staff and enrolled students. “Law enforcement may only enter with a valid judicial warrant … Everyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status, has the right to remain silent,” it continues.

The flyer provides a QR code that, if scanned, leads to a ‘Know your Rights’ Web page informing viewers of their Constitutional rights.

By the next day, April 30, the university administration had asked its staff to remove the flyers, which, it said, had not been produced and posted by the university administration. And just as quickly as the flyers appeared, they began disappearing.

Until May 1, when 80 kits mysteriously surfaced on tables around campus. The kits were stacks of more of the flyers and were left next to rolls of a gentle white masking tape. The guerrilla activists, not to be deterred by the administration, were now encouraging DIY activism.

Most of the flyers had been taken down by this week, when ChicoSol was able to locate and talk to a couple of the people involved in the flyer-posting action. (One of the two people referred to the flyer-posting as “guerrilla activism,” which can mean an uncondoned action like street art to get attention and spark dialogue.)

A few flyers still remained posted on campus doors earlier this week.

A 23-year-old student who was involved in the unauthorized flyer-posting insisted on anonymity and said he wanted to protect himself, as well as members of a group of a dozen students who were involved. Posting flyers on classroom doors – with the university wildcat logo, nonetheless – requires administration approval — even if they provide factually-accurate information.

The university’s Time, Place, Manner policy, adopted last year, says flyers posted on campus must be approved by the Student Life and Leadership Office.

Some of the students he collaborated with might be far more vulnerable than he is if agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were to come on campus, he said. As a “white male,” the student said, he was not running the risk that some of his co-activists were running, and thus he felt obliged to participate in what was an effort to make a political and informational statement.

He worried that if he allowed ChicoSol to use his name, the administration might attempt to identify his collaborators by reviewing camera footage.

University Public Relations Director Andrew Staples responded to a ChicoSol request for comment after this story was posted, confirming that the administration didn’t authorize the notices. “We think [the flyers] were posted by someone in the campus community who was trying to be helpful,” Staples said prior to reading this story.

“You can’t just hang stuff anywhere,” Staples said, noting that there’s a “publicity protocol.”

The student, a history major, said the matter of recent deportations across the nation “doesn’t sit right with me.” He didn’t pay the issue a lot of attention prior to the March arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil has been living in this country with legal resident status and was detained in his New York City apartment building by ICE agents who didn’t have a judicial warrant.

“If it could happen to one person it could happen to anybody,” the student said.

Under the Fourth Amendment, ICE needs a judicial warrant — that’s a warrant issued by a federal court — to enter a private space. And under Chico State policy, classrooms are private spaces.

The student said that as members of the activist group fanned out around campus to post the flyers on April 29, he probably “worried more about getting caught than I should have. But it was nice to share camaraderie with people who felt the same way I did.”

The student said that the mass deportation policy has not been discussed in any of his Chico State classes. Though some chapters of U.S. history would be relevant, the student said he can understand that his professors are focused on covering certain content and “don’t want to slot in a day for current events.”

The flyers were posted on doors at the Behavioral and Social Sciences Building, Modoc Hall, academic affairs, Holt Hall and other buildings.

The flyer says that “For More Information” university Diversity Officer Joseph Morales can be contacted. Staples said Morales had nothing to do with the flyer.

The notice in fact was modeled after a similar flyer that appeared on the Northwestern University campus in Illinois that was also posted by immigration activists.

At Chico State, in an apparent coincidence, President Steve Perez sent an email to the campus community just hours before the guerrilla activists struck.

“As a reminder, Chico State will not assist federal immigration officials engaged in enforcement activities on campus,” the email states, “including those from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection unless they present a judicial warrant or subpoena.”

The email notes that no such actions have yet occurred at Chico State.

Editor: In our 4 p.m. update, we also explain why we used the term “guerrilla activism” in response to a reader who questioned that language.

Leslie Layton is editor of ChicoSol.