Last month, a Brooklyn College student was forced to take down pro-Palestinian signs on the door of her assigned art studio following an anonymous complaint to campus police. While the school claimed the posters violated school policy, numerous postings on other doors were allowed to stay up, raising First Amendment concerns.
Morgan Patten is a graduate student in the Brooklyn College art department. Following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, Patten hung two signs on the door of her personal on-campus art studio. One sign read "Free Palestine," the other "Zionism is fascism." The signs stayed up for more than a month until the school held an event called "Open Studios," where the public was invited to view students' art projects and studio spaces. During the event, campus police received an anonymous complaint about the signs, and two officers arrived to order Patten to take them down.
