This week we are changing direction and will focus on the nominees for the 2010 Student Event of t
he Year. The nominees were chosen based on a number of factors including the the originality of the idea, the work put into making it a reality, the number of attendees, media coverage, the impact on campus, and the impact on the wider student movement for liberty.
The first nominee profile is of Liberty on the Diag held on October 20th at the University of Michigan. This fall, the university passed a campus wide smoking ban, making it a violation for anyone to smoke tobacco on university grounds. At first there was little opposition, but fortunately the liberty movement at UM mobilized to get the word out and oppose the ban.
The UM College Libertarians (last year’s Group of the Year) organized a coalition of student and community groups to protest against the university’s campus-wide smoking ban. The coalition consisted of the College
Libertarians, Students for a Free Economy, Young Americans for Freedom, Students of Objectivism, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, Campaign for Liberty, and the Local Libertarian Party of Washtenaw County.
The campaign was kicked off by a rally on the Diag, which is the main common space on UM’s campus. All the participating groups set up tables around the Diag to spread information on why their group opposed the ban. The center of the Diag featured banners and Gadsden Flags flying to draw attention to the event. Surround the flags were posters on the ground with quotes from famous defenders of liberty such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Heinlein.
Sam Van Kleef of the CLs and YAF uses the megaphone to defend liberty
Following the rally the groups launched a media campaign to continue the momentum. They wrote letters to the editor and published op-eds in the local and school newspapers. The highlight of the media campaign came when College Libertarian President Jonathan Slemrod quoted in Time Magazine.
