Local News in Brief : Fullerton : Ban on Dukakis Signs at Reagan Speech Assailed

The Cal State Fullerton Academic Senate, the university’s faculty-governing body, Thursday charged that students who tried to carry Dukakis-Bentsen signs into the gymnasium where President Reagan spoke Tuesday had them seized.

The group’s protest came on the heels of complaints Wednesday by some parents of Fullerton grade school and high school students who attended the President’s speech. Those parents charged that the students were “duped” into being stage dressing for a partisan, Republican rally featuring the President.

Julian Foster, a professor of political science and former chairman of the Academic Senate, Thursday said students carrying pro-Democratic signs had them taken away before being allowed into the gymnasium when Reagan spoke. Foster charged that this seizure came despite an earlier agreement “that students could carry any kind of signs as long as they had no sticks attached.”

Foster said that not only were Dukakis-Bentsen signs kept out of the assembly area, but also Republican activists were passing out Bush-Quayle signs attached to sticks “in violation of the agreement.”

Norma Morris, staff assistant to Cal State Fullerton President Jewel Plummer Cobb, said Thursday that the only agreement she knew of was that “no sticks be attached to any signs, and that is for safety and is a customary university policy.”

Steven Jacques, 21, of Fullerton, chief of staff of Cal State Fullerton’s Associated Students, said Thursday that people at the doors of the gym confiscated all signs students tried to bring in, regardless of what the signs said. “But inside the gym, they had set up all these Bush-Quayle signs, so it really was not fair,” Jacques said.