Within the past month, flyers made by the Lavender Collective, a club for BIPOC queer students, have been posted across the LAC campus, offering tips for students on how to address on-campus petitioners.
Rather than focusing on the individuals collecting the signatures, these flyers brought attention to the act of signing itself and the level of awareness students should have when signing petitions.
The messaging reflects the growing concern about how students can be approached and persuaded in fast-moving environments. Many interactions between students and petitioners are often quick, leaving little room for consideration of what is being signed.
Shei Wright, the club’s founder, is a petitioner themself, and created the posters.
“I’m very involved with political organizing and part of that is educating the masses on how to get properly involved with organizing, how to spot fake petitioners, people who are cash grabbing, and using false petitions or shady companies,” Wright said.
Wright says the purpose of the flyers was to encourage students to be mindful when they are signing petitions on campus.
“Don’t know don’t sign means that if you don’t know something don’t sign something….You can say that same about any other contract, any other thing that you are putting your sensitive information on. I understand how students can feel seeing it at face value but that was the point,” Wright said.
Wright also addressed concerns about how some students were being approached by petitioners.
“During the first and second week of school I was being harassed sexually and being verbally accosted by petitioners….” Wright said.
They described what they and others perceived as coercive tactics.
“[Petitioners] were violating federal and state laws, such as handing out food to students in exchange.”
Wright said that emotional appeals combined with the lack of information can lead students to make decisions they can’t fully understand, with students impacted by immigration enforcement being a particular target.
“Most of the petitioners were targeting those affected by ICE and they were trying to garner our emotions into signing,” Wright said.
Student Abi Altamirano recounts the times she’s encountered petitioners on her way to class, “I’m usually in such a rush, I never think to ask that. They never really state the company or organization, they just explain what it’s for and they’ll ask you to sign. It’s kind of like that pressure to sign… They stop you and call you out, they use that word, ‘help’ and it makes you feel like if you don’t help you’re doing something wrong not helping out.”
Altamirano mentioned how the flyers have influenced her to consider what she might be participating in, “Lately I’ve been seeing postings of signs and flyers… I think that’s really helpful because it makes you stop and think that I shouldn’t be signing all of these things blindly,” she said.
ASB president Prince Bass said concerns about petitioner behavior had been built over time, particularly through incident reports from students.
“This past fall, we had several instances with students who were harassed and assaulted by petitioners and it was kind of being brushed under the rug,” Bass said.
He emphasized that student leadership has been trying to balance support for free expression with concerns about safety.
“Were advocates for free speech but we’re also advocates of student safety,” Bass said.
Bass said the goal is not to discourage petitioning outright but to reframe the conversation around awareness and education.
“It becomes an educational thing as opposed to a stigma,” he said. “We don’t even want to create a stigma that petitions are bad, …You’re petitioning for something…There’s something that you want to see change, that doesn’t make you a bad person.”
Wright also added that while petitioners may be motivated by pay, they do not feel that law enforcement should be a solution.
“The way that I wanted to approach it was not by saying we need law enforcement on campus, I wanted it to be geared more towards the students, know what you’re doing before you do it.
These petitioners just want to get paid and I understand and that’s no reason to have the cops called on them so we can just shift the focus towards the students to discourage them from being on campus,” Wright said.
According to LBCC’s student life policies, individuals seeking to circulate petitions on campus must first apply and be approved by the college.
LBCC’s guidelines also state that interactions must remain voluntary, requiring students to approach petitioners on their own. Petitioners are prohibited from approaching, confronting or intimidating individuals while gathering signatures.
