Michigan Land for Sale

On 10/22/2011 , a group of Ron Paul supporters were denied our First Amendment rights by College Gameday staff. We made signs that basically said things like “Ron Paul 4 Prez”, “End the Fed”, “Ron Paul 2012″, etc. ESPN vetted our signs and let us in to the taping. About halfway through the taping, ESPN security confiscated our signs, while leaving up signs that had Obama’s campaign logo on it. We asked if we could pick up our signs (as we put much effort into making them, and hoped to use them at future events) after the show, or just leave the signs down, which is when we were informed that ESPN security planned on destroying them. We spoke with the police about this obvious violation of property rights, to which we were told they could do nothing about. One of our representatives whose signs weren’t confiscated distributed the rest of his signs to the group, and we continued to raise the signs. ESPN sent an MSU Special Events staff to confront us. We were told that we could keep the signs if we left, which we did so peacefully. We asked this representative why we were not allowed our First Amendment rights, to which he replied that technically, “ESPN owned Munn field” Now, this is quite clearly a fallacy. ESPN contracted the land from the University. The University owns the land, which means the state of Michigan therefore owns it, making it public land.