Apparently the athletic department at Mr. Jefferson's University has a problem with free speech.
How else can you explain the case of Greg Demery, a 46-year-old Arlington, Va. resident and North Carolina fan - you'll have to forgive him for that - who was removed from his seat two rows behind Virginia's bench before the Cavaliers' Jan. 8 home match against the Tar Heels?
Why was he removed? Because he was wearing a Carolina blue jacket. According to reports published in the Raleigh News Observer, when Demery went to sit in a seat he purchased from a scalper outside the stadium, he was immediately questioned by a security guard. Demery was "wearing the wrong colors," the guard said.
After having the validity of his ticket questioned multiple times, Jason Bauman, associate athletic director for facilities and operations at Virginia, decided to move the Tar Heel fan 17 rows back in the stands, despite his legally purchased ticket.
The ticket he purchased was one usually given to athletic department staffers. The staffer who received the tickets gave them to a friend, who sold one to a scalper. But that wasn't even the reason the fan was moved.
"We don't allow people in those seats to be dressed in the opposing team's apparel," Bauman told the News Observer. "Because he was in that section, we moved him."
What? Are you kidding me, Jason? He can't sit there because of the T-shirt he was wearing? Last time I checked, the list of banned items at games does not include opposing jerseys.
Next thing you are going tell me is that students can't hold up signs at football and basketball games.
Oh, right, I forgot - Craig Littlepage already tried to ban those. It took Rick Reilly of all people to end that one, using his national column for ESPN.com to publicize the ban and eventually get it reversed.
Now, neither Bauman nor Littlepage attended the University of Virginia. But let me remind them of a little bit of history.
The University of Virginia was founded in 1819 by none other than our third president, Thomas Jefferson. If you walk across Grounds, you may have noticed the 30,000 Jeffersonian statues, paintings, figurines, quotations and other memorabilia.
Jefferson, among other things, was the author of the Declaration of Independence. You may have heard some of it:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," Jefferson wrote, some 240 years ago.
Liberty, be it based on religion or speech, is so vital to the forming of the University of Virginia that it's reflected in our very architecture. The central piece of the University, to this day, is the Rotunda - a library, and not a church.
There is even a Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression affiliated with the University and located right here in Charlottesville. I think they would have plenty to say about an official at Mr. Jefferson's University moving someone because of the color of his T-shirt.
For Bauman to forget a principle so central to the founding of the University is ridiculous. Instead of admitting a mistake that someone in his department made by allowing the tickets to be sold to opposing fans, Bauman decided to punish someone who did nothing wrong other than root for the wrong team. If he wants to argue that a third-row seat and a 20th-row seat are the same, I'd invite him to look at the ticket prices and recommended donations required to make the move to sit that close.
And although Bauman might insist that other universities, including the University of North Carolina, have done and will do the exact same thing - remember the case of Roy Williams ordering the removal of a Providence fan who heckled a Tar Heel player shooting a free throw - he is missing the point.
We are not the Tar Heels. No reason to sink to their level now.
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