The front campus rock has been a canvas board for student expression since 1922. Both positive and negative messages and illustrations have been displayed on the boulder.

Hate speech on The Rock can occur when student groups and individuals paint racist, homophobic, offensive and targeted messages.

Sohaela Rojas, president of Kent State’s chapter of the national organization Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, said painting The Rock has become a tradition for her group.

“We have dealt with some issues here and there; people just wanting to paint over what we put, or being upset that we painted over what they put,” Rojas said.

KSURGE has written the name of their chapter, “Cool Kids Vote” and a message during their vigil for trans youth on The Rock. Their declaration of support for the vigil caused the most concern.

“People were frustrated that we had painted on The Rock because I guess before we painted it, the Palestinian group on campus had painted something in support of Palestine,” Rojas said. “People thought that we painted over that, so they were frustrated with us. But it actually was already painted over when we had painted it.”

This kind of issue is one that she feels could be solved with heavier regulations for painting it.

“Right now, it’s just open for anybody to use whenever they want,” she said. “So with that, there’s been issues with hate speech or anything that’s geared towards being against someone or something that has been written on The Rock. And I think that it’s gotten to the point where we need to set some regulations so that people aren’t putting harmful things on The Rock.”

Olivia Asp, a junior visual communication design major who has lived in Kent for years, witnessed the height of hate speech on The Rock.

“There was some pretty bad stuff going on with The Rock in 2020 with the stuff that people were spraying on it,” said Asp. “It was used to promote Black Lives Matter, but also to put it down.”

Asp said she knows students will use it for both good and bad, but she believes that it sometimes gives the university a negative image.

“If it was me running the university, I would probably try to shut down The Rock operations,” she said. “It would feel like more of a net negative because bad things were painted on it, and The Rock is associated with Kent State.”

Currently, there is a set of rules for painting The Rock which, if violated, could result in disciplinary action:

1. Any painting remaining for at least 24 hours.
2. Dating and time-stamping the painting.
3. Painting The Rock in totality, no painting comments on a previous painting.
4. Messages must reflect the university and be kept in good taste.
5. Obscene paintings in violation of university policies will be removed or painted over at any time.
6. The physical condition of The Rock cannot be altered.
7. No guarding The Rock.

Rojas believes there should be a rule that the university must be notified of what will be painted on The Rock beforehand in order to prevent hate speech.

“I think they should set up a way to kind of reserve being able to paint The Rock, and maybe even with that, there can be a screening process to see what people are planning on putting on The Rock,” Rojas said.

Audrey Pierson, a senior visual communication design major, said the first time she learned about The Rock was because of Black Lives Matter hate speech.

She said she believes some people are gross about it, but ultimately, The Rock brings people together.

“I think there’s a lot of nasty people out there, but to take something away that gives students the place to express different things would do more harm than good,” Pierson said.

Lauren Cohen is a beat reporter. Contact her at [email protected].