The University of Mary Washington is hosting Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden this evening in their first joint appearance in Virginia. In honor of this event, this public university thought that they would sell t-shirts.
Eikenberg said she’s not sure whom she’ll vote for, but she plans on buying one of 1,000 T-shirts that UMW’s bookstore ordered for the rally. The shirt has UMW’s logo on the front and the back reads: “Obama was there, Biden was there, I was there, UMW ’08.”
“We came up with the ideas and ran it up the chain at the university,” said bookstore manager Kathy Underwood. “We wanted to make sure it was appropriate.”
So, the leadership of the university approved the sale of the shirts in the university bookstore.
However, according to an update from the Free-Lance Star, complaints prompted the office of the Attorney General to get involved, which yielded results that shirts should not be sold.
Mary R. Corbin, executive director of university relations and communications at UMW, said the AG’s office was consulted after the school received a complaint.
She said the sale of the T-shirts could give the impression of an endorsement of Obama, since the UMW logo is printed on the front.
The thing to remember is that the university leadership initially approved the sale. Yet another example of liberal bias in academia. How else can you explain leadership actually thinking that selling campaign propaganda in a bookstore at a public university is “appropriate”?
DJ thought this was an opportunity though. He advocated that the sales of the shirts should go forward, since we’re facing massive budget shortfalls.
We can get started by saving roughly 3-4% of the current budget gap, and let UMW sell whatever T-shirts it wants, by letting the school go private.
Mary Washington gets approximately $93 million in state money.
