In protest of the ban on GALA and OUTreach ND advertisements in The Observer, 225 faculty members signed a petition condemning the administration's decision. The petition ran as a full page ad in Friday's newspaper.

The petition's organizers — Ava Preacher, assistant dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and philosophy professor Ed Manier — spent about three weeks gathering the signatures. Preacher said the petition stems from a desire to gauge the faculty's position on the advertising ban.

"We don't expect the administration to respond," Preacher said. "They just want to see it die. We do hope that the faculty protest will stimulate a reconsideration of the issue by [University president] Father [Edward] Malloy."

Manier agreed. "The ad copy makes it fairly plain that we didn't expect a response," he said. "We're telling [the president] we think what he did is inappropriate and we're telling him why we think that.

"He'll have a chance to respond to questions of this sort when he comes to the Faculty Senate sometime after midterm," Manier continued. "I'd be very disappointed if he didn't give the Faculty Senate a candid response to this protest."

Manier said he was pleased with the faculty's support for the petition. He explained that because faculty offices are spread throughout campus, it was difficult to inform everyone of the petition. Manier added that faculty members from Saint Mary's were also very supportive.

"It's their paper as well," he said. "Our president made a rule for their paper without any involvement from people across the road."

While the College of Science, the College of Arts and Letters and the Law School had a good turnout, Manier said he was hoping for more support from the College of Engineering and the College of Business Administration. He said issues of free press should concern the whole campus.

"We've got signatures from the College of Engineering and COBA but not nearly as good percentage turnout," he said. "That disappoints me."

Preacher said she hoped the student body would follow the faculty's lead.

"We think this is an important issue that shouldn't be allowed to die," she said. "I also wish the student voice would rise up. I have a hard time believing they don't have some opinion about what it means to prevent The Observer from printing certain kinds of ads."

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