About 30 protesters met in the Martin Luther King Commons Thursday in hopes of abolishing “free-speech zones” designated by NIU.

A small gathering congregated at 1:30 p.m. to discuss the meaning of the protest and how it was to be carried out. Zach Lutz, Karl Huck and Jim Schmit, graduate students and members of the Labor Rights Alliance who helped organize the protest, spoke about the First Amendment and the rights of NIU students.

According to the rights defined in the First Amendment, students should not have to meet in a specified zone to protest political actions or to help bring about change at NIU, Lutz said.

In 1985, NIU and other universities across the nation chose a location on campus where students could meet and set up protests. The MLK Commons area outside the Holmes Student Center was the location designated NIU’s first “free-speech zone.” When Vice President Dick Cheney visited NIU Sept. 18, a small area was designated outside the Convocation Center for protest.

“According to the ‘free-speech zone’ action in our university, we are only allowed to meet in .014 percent of the total campus, when under the First Amendment we should not be designated a place to actively practice free speech,” Lutz said.

Schmit said protesting is not to bring about terror, but to bring about change.

After the meeting, the protesters marched across campus to Cole, Reavis and DuSable halls, chanting for NIU to give the students back their free speech. The group then went to Altgeld Hall to NIU President John Peters’ office to hand-deliver a petition that was made Sept. 27 to collect signatures to show the major student backing behind the issue of free speech on campus. The number of signatures so far is close to 400, but the group is still actively collecting them outside classrooms of several buildings on campus.

The protesters then met on the lawn outside Altgeld to discuss a further course of action in this campaign and other upcoming campaigns.

Huck invited the group to stay for Peters’ State of the University address, provided they sit quietly. They were told they could hold their signs in front of them to show their presence there.

Marissa McGrath, a representative for the Women’s Alliance, said this protest shows students here can handle free speech and should be allowed to advocate it freely.

“Freedom of speech is important to everyone, especially women, due to issues of inequality,” McGrath said.

Mike Banghart, a member of the Labor Rights Alliance, said that this was the first step in this campaign to show student approval and to give hard evidence supporting this fact.

“We are prepared to escalate the campaign further if action is not made to end the free-speech zones,” Banghart said.