Two Eastern students chalked messages near Old Main’s east side, on the Doudna Fine Arts Center steps and the breezeway between Coleman and Lumpkin halls stating that the university’s mission statement and actions were not coinciding.

The message came on the heels of President Bill Perry’s mass email to both employees and students reaffirming the university’s commitment to diversity, free speech and enforcement.

The message in front of Old Main reads as follows: “Dear President Perry, commitment to diversity does not equal using student funds to support a hate group. Freedom of speech does not equal zero accountability. Commitment to enforcement does not equal dismissing intolerance on this campus.”

Upon seeing the chalk-written “letter,” Perry emailed the students, seniors Shelby Koehne and Heather Gerrish, inviting them to come to his office for a meeting next Thursday. Koehne and Gerrish accepted. Dan Nadler, the vice president for student affairs, has also contacted the students.

“I was pleased to see the creative way in which the letter was delivered,” Perry said in an email to The Daily Eastern News.

In the same email, Perry said the recent Chick-fil-A controversy was the reason behind the email and not Tuesday’s anti-abortion demonstration.

Before writing the messages, Koehne and Gerrish spent most of Wednesday night, after reading Perry’s 9 a.m. mass email, discussing the correlation between Chick-fil-A, Eastern and Eastern’s mission statement.

“We were really talking about how we had felt that this issue was really bothering us, but we couldn’t really do anything about it,” said Gerrish, an English major. “We felt that there were already students and faculty members on campus who were already expressing their opinions.”

Gerrish said she and Koehne didn’t feel like they could add anything to the conversation.

“Then, we realized that it didn’t matter if there’s really one good speaker—there (needed) to be as many people as possible expressing their opinions,” Gerrish said.

Then, at midnight, Koehne and Gerrish left their apartment and began chalking an opinion that Koehne said took her a while to be able to vocalize because she was afraid of the consequences for other people.

“I sort of remained at bay with my thoughts because I didn’t want people to attack the wrong people, but Heather convinced me that more good would come out of (me) saying something,” said Koehne, an English major. “I was one of those ‘innocent bystanders’ because that is where I wanted to fall, but then I found out that there have been hate crimes committed on this campus.”

Nico Canaday’s speech during a Faculty Senate’s meeting, where Canaday said students who were identified as LGBT were victims of hate crimes involving expletives written on Chick-fil-A wrappers, was something that Gerrish said made her want to take action.

“Some examples of the types of discrimination that having a Chick-fil-A on campus encourages are: putting (Chick-fil-A) wrappers on our LGBT students’ cars with threats and insults written on them, throwing chicken sandwiches at (EIU Pride) members, and I myself have been alled a ‘fucking faggot’ just for informing some of my classmates that the money they spend at Chick-fil-A goes to anti-gay lobbyist and hate groups,” Canaday said, during his Faculty Senate speech.

Gerrish said Canaday’s speech hit home for her.

“His message sort of brought to my attention that the climate has kind of shifted from the LGBT community because it has emboldened people, who otherwise would have been quiet about it,” Gerrish said. “This was my way of doing my best to bring it to people’s attention.”

Gerrish said she has tried to talk to other students about Chick-fil-A, but has been met with resistance.

“What bothers me more than that is that when we are trying to bring this to the attention of people on campus…they don’t care and they don’t want to hear about it,” Gerrish said. “It’s like those people who say ‘I don’t watch the news because it’s too depressing’—it’s like people know that they don’t have all the facts, but they don’t want to hear it.”

Koehne agreed.

“For me, it was about taking responsibility with the new knowledge I had—people were getting hurt, and if I wasn’t doing anything about it, then I’m only aiding those inflicting hurt,” Koehne said.

Koehne said students and faculty need to educate themselves on issues happening not only on Eastern’s campus, but across the country.

“A lot students (Wednesday) got that email from President Perry and had no idea what he was talking about or why that statement was issued,” Koehne said. “They would have read it and glanced over it, and I would have too if I had not been looking for that statement—anticipating it.”

While it doesn’t surprise her that Perry has not made a statement directly related to Chick-fil-A, Koehne said if people are being violently—emotionally, physically or mentally—affected, then Perry should be obligated to alert students to dangers.

“I do think he had a responsibility to make it expressly clear what had been happening and why the statement was now being issue,” Koehne said. “People are being affected by it and it’s happening on this campus. It’s happening now and it’s happening on this campus.”

Gerrish said Eastern needs to validate its mission statement by not renewing its contract with Chick-fil-A for the 2012-2013 academic year.

“I love that mission statement and I want to be a part of a community that lives by those beliefs and doesn’t just say them,” she said.

Nike Ogunbodede can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].