OPINION: Allow me to set the scene. You’re walking through the Memorial Union, heading towards the Bear’s Den. It’s about noon, time to grab lunch. This is the busiest time of the day, next to the rush of people when meal exchange opens at 2 p.m. As you pass through Union Central, you hear a voice accosting you from across the room. They call you over to their table. Maybe it’s a bake sale, maybe it’s a raffle basket fundraiser. Regardless, it’s a student club trying to raise money. However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, it’s an outside entity who has paid to sit in the union and table to talk to students.
Outside entities shouldn’t be able to pay to come take a table that might’ve otherwise gone to a student organization. Sometimes it’s local apartment complexes trying to promote signing a lease that may or may not be to the detriment of the student. Sometimes, it’s a bank. Sometimes, it’s an organization trying to spread awareness about being an organ or blood donor. The intentions vary and some are more worthwhile than others, but ultimately allowing people to pay to sit up in a central area for students opens Pandora’s box for bad apples.
I can recall a certain situation last year where a table called Students for Life, an organization that is not yet recognized or affiliated with the University of Maine, was tabling in the union. They were inflammatory in both manner and set-up. Their table boasted a display loudly claiming that aborted babies were being dissolved into your tap water. They would encourage students to debate with them. What students might not have realized is that there was a camera on the table, recording the whole thing.
This is a common tactic that right-wing ‘debaters’ do. They encourage left-leaning students into a debate and then trap them in a net of logical fallacies to post online in a compilation titled something akin to “cringe liberals owned compilation”. This creates a situation where students feel unsafe and harassed in their own environment. They’re scared that their face is gonna be blown up online even if they simply walk by the table. Maine is a one-party consent recording state, meaning there’s significantly less legal recourse that can be taken to prevent something like this from happening. The most simple solution to protect students lies in making sure this can’t happen again.
While there is merit in outside organizations coming to talk to students, I don’t believe it’s worth the trade off of also allowing people with malicious intentions of baiting and recording students. One could make the argument that we just need a stricter vetting process, but this simply won’t work. In the instance that a group like this is applying and they’re known to be a problem, the school can’t turn them down without facing issues of political discrimination. The only option would be to make tabling for recognized student groups only.
