The Politics of Student Expression

 Vandalism and expression on Washington Ave. Bridge, an (incomplete) history

Carina Dieringer

Ask any student at the University of Minnesota, and they will tell you that the walk down Washington Avenue Bridge feels endless. Nothing distinguishes one step from the next, the only viable way to check your progress from one bank to the other being to glance out a window and mentally note how much of the Mississippi River lies behind you. Current students may wonder—has the walk always felt so soulless? 

I scoured the MNDaily archives to answer this question.  

The Washington Avenue Bridge, built in 1965, has gone through many changes before becoming what we know today. The longest running iteration began in 1997 and continued 24 years until its official end in 2021. This was the “Paint the Bridge” campaign, in which student groups from across campus painted the panels running along the bridge. The annual tradition provided student groups with a way to advertise—an extremely important opportunity given the navigation hardships that accompany the official campus group website GopherLink. This tradition continued in 2011 when half the bridge was barricaded for construction, and was only ever cancelled once in 2008, proving that, rain or shine, interest was widespread. 

Political contention on the bridge is not a new concept. One prominent event occurred at the beginning of Donald Trump’s first election. The College Republicans’ “Build the Wall” panel was vandalized, according to an article published in late 2016. The content on the panel sparked student protests and prompted faux brick walls with supportive messages to be placed in obstruction of it. 

Other student groups were no stranger to political controversy and vandalization. A mural by the Muslim Students Association was spray-painted with the acronym “ISIS” in 2016. A Turkish student group alleged in a 2019 Letter to the Editor that a Daily submission had misunderstood their intentions behind the inclusion of  a map of Cyprus on their student group painting. This occurred after a group of 18 students and faculty announced their objection to the map in the context of the Turkish occupation of the country. In 2004, a swastika was painted over the designated panel of Alpha Epsilon Pi—a Jewish fraternity. It is likely that any number of these instances contributed to the University’s decision to end the “Paint the Bridge” campaign. 

Expression and defacement on the bridge incited fierce debates about who gets to define hate speech and what the First Amendment entails. Yet it is also worth noting that these instances were likely not a regular occurrence. For every sensational flyer or piece of graffiti, there were dozens of mundane yet beautiful and imaginative paintings that made the Washington Avenue Bridge feel like a place that belonged to the campus community. Within that community, there is no shortage of opinions on how the bridge can be improved. Solar panels. A hot chocolate stand. Input from the College of Design. An editorial piece from 2015 calling for bridge improvements rhetorically asked “Is there any uglier relic on the University of Minnesota campus?,” citing the student group paintings as the bridge’s only redeeming quality. All of these hopes for change seem to wither when walking the bridge today. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but something as small as seeing the Keith Haring style graffiti (which has seemingly spread to every corner of campus) or a cute cat sticker (tucked into a barely visible crack in a pillar) can brighten my entire walk. 

Every step I take down the bridge is a reminder of the 60 years of memories it holds. Years of doodles and student paintings are now slathered in empty gopher pride, leaving only the occasional torn remnants of posters and stickers to remind one that other students have attempted to defy anti-vandalism measures. Most recently, cones and caution tape surround an area covered in what I assume is salt, an overdramatic attempt at erasing whatever political statement someone had scribbled on the ground in chalk. 

What was once a beautiful depiction of student culture that bridged the arts and the sciences has now become yet another soulless representation of corporate pride. To anyone that takes a stroll down the bridge today, it is evident that students will always find a way to express their art and opinions, legal or not. Yet it seems that, to the U and their goal of “political neutrality,” we are not a group of people with diverse viewpoints, ideas, creative outlooks, and interests. We are simply a monolith waiting to be covered in a fresh coat of maroon and gold paint.