Petition peddlers too prevelant on campus

by Alejandra Arana |Staff Writer|

Admit it, when you walk to class and you see people asking for signatures you feel awkward. You want to avoid them at any cost.

I think these people that solicit on campus should be restricted on how much time they spend on our campus badgering our students and staff.

Let’s get one thing straight. This is their job and they get paid to go around campuses and register students as well as inform them about what is going on in our city.

“We are here almost every day mid-morning to evenings to get students to register to vote and inform them about issues that will benefit or could harm them,” said Dee Dee Anderson, one of the women who was asking for signatures.

When asked how much she gets paid for doing her job, Anderson changed the subject and avoided giving me the answer.

The more students that they manage to register to vote and the more signatures they gather, the more their monthly check grows. But this is at the expense of our patience and time.

Anderson explained to me that they are not politicians and they are simply expressing their freedom to petition and freedom of speech.

Their freedom of speech, though, causes students to feel uncomfortable and at times harassed by them no matter how kindly we say “no thank you.”

I don’t think it’s fair for students to have to deal with people that can be rude on a daily basis no matter how much of their freedom of speech they want to express.

“I feel like it’s an obstacle to get to class. I mean I appreciate the effort but since I have already registered it gets annoying sometimes,” said student Arthur Ortiz.

As I interviewed Anderson, the other people that were with her saw students and pounced on the opportunity to get signatures, disregarding the student’s feelings.

Some are very aggressive and do not leave students alone until the student signs or just walks away.

Others go as far as yell at students that do not sign their papers and chase them down until some other innocent student walks by.

There is one man in particular that goes after females and tries to seduce them with winks but as soon as the females say no he turns right around and make disrespectful comments to them.

We pay thousands of dollars to attend this campus and figuring out a way to avoid a building or people is not something we should have to stand for.

CSUSB should be a place where students feel welcome. Campus police should make students feel safe, not feel like they need to avoid major buildings like the Santos Manuel Student Union because there are people outside that won’t leave them alone.

Campus security needs to take this seriously and really monitor what these people are up to, so they do not cross the line while petitioning to students.

If they spent half the time walking throughout campus than they do patroling the parking lot, students would be badgered less often.

These people and campus police need to know that students do not like the fact that our learning environment is known as a swap meet for signatures.