Coastal Carolina University’s (CCU) Chants for Liberty student organization delivered nearly 900 signed petitions to University President Michael Benson’s office by surprise.
Chants for Liberty have been gathering signatures on Prince Lawn over the past Fall semester from the student body, as well as a few faculty and staff members.
All signatures represent individuals that are in favor of petitioning for a CCU policy change that would allow nonlethal weapons of self-defense tools, such as pepper spray and tasers, on campus.
Chants for Liberty is the CCU chapter of the national Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) student activism organization. As a CCU student and direct representative of YAL at CCU, senior political science major Michael Wingo took a lead role in the petitioning process.
“We’re pro-liberty, student activism,” Wingo said. “We’re all about fighting bad policies on campus and making it a little more free, open for everybody.”
Restrictions on weapons and/or dangerous instruments can be found in the university’s 2024/2025 Code of Student Conduct, under “Chapter C. Prohibited Conduct.”
CCU’s current student conduct policy 18 states that the following is prohibited:
“…Possessing and/or using a dangerous instrument, including decoys and replicas. Any instrument may be defined as dangerous if it is used, attempted or threatened to be used, or is readily capable of being used to cause physical injury.”
Chants for Liberty is petitioning a policy revision that instead states the prohibition of only “possessing and/or using any other weapon prohibited by Federal or South Carolina law.”
Wingo said multiple students have told him that their pepper spray was taken by both the CCU Department of Public Safety and student resident advisers.
“[The policy] is basically just using vague terminology to allow the school a little bit of leeway with whatever they want to allow when it comes to self-defense tools,” Wingo said.
Sophomore Jenna Watson, the social media manager, said she is mainly concerned about lack of protection on CCU’s public campus.
“Not being able to make that choice for yourself leaves you vulnerable, and I don’t particularly enjoy being vulnerable,” Watson said. “Especially on a campus such as this, with two bars across the street and people drinking all the time and it being more of a party school.”
Chants for Liberty members took it upon themselves to walk into the Singleton Building on Nov. 21 to request a meeting with President Benson. The walk-in was nonviolent and non-disruptive.
Organization members held signs supporting their cause as Wingo presented printed copies of 874 signatures in favor of the petition. Although Chants for Liberty had received just over 1,000 signatures, roughly 150 had not been digitally finalized or delivered to the president at the time.
Amanda Foss, executive assistant to the president, responded to the group saying that President Benson was out of the office in a meeting.
She advised Wingo to email the president about their visit and said that she would deliver the petition and signatures to his desk.
Although the interaction did not result in the requested meeting, members have not given up hope.
Junior philosophy major Jake Oldford said they will have to wait and see how President Benson responds to the petition delivery.
“If it does catch more fire than it did, there might be more public demand for the ratification of these changes that YAL would like to see,” Olford said. “We won’t know until we get there.”
