ACLU of Ohio Sends Letter to Ohio State University Demanding Rescission of “Flatly Unconstitutional” Campus Chalking Ban
July 30, 2026 10:00 am
COLUMBUS — Today the ACLU of Ohio sent a letter to Ohio State University (OSU) President Ravi V. Bellamkonda urging his administration to immediately rescind the 2025 ban on chalking messages on campus, on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment.
The letter explains that OSU’s policy, though written in neutral terms, unconstitutionally suppresses speech because of that speech’s content. Further, after a series of public records requests, the ACLU of Ohio found that the ban was enacted specifically to suppress pro-Palestine and/or anti-Zionist political viewpoints. OSU’s ban on chalked messages is a severe imposition on the free-speech rights of the OSU community. Without decisive action from the university, the ACLU of Ohio will not hesitate to take legal action in federal court.
Per the demand letter, OSU’s records demonstrate that the ban was enacted in order to suppress a particular viewpoint:
"In response to a public records request from the ACLU of Ohio, OSU has produced all complaints pertaining to chalking on campus from January 1, 2024, until the Chalking Ban’s enactment on August 14, 2025. Where the content of the chalk is noted in the complaint documentation, every single one pertains to pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist, and/or anti-Israel chalked messages. The complaints were hardly overwhelming in number for a university OSU’s size; in approximately 18 months preceding the ban, there were a mere 37 of them."
"OSU's Chalking Ban silences an entire medium of speech in order to discriminate against one political viewpoint; it must not stand for another school year. We urge President Bellamkonda to correct the mistakes made by his predecessor’s administration and immediately rescind this unconstitutional policy. Students have a right to express their political views on campus free of this kind of discrimination, even if those views may offend some of their peers," added David Carey, Managing Legal Director for the ACLU of Ohio.
The ACLU of Ohio has stated that it will pursue legal action if Ohio State University fails to rescind the chalking ban.
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