At least five Department of Public Safety officers told roughly 100 people camped out for Pit Crew T-shirts and basketball tickets that they could no longer pitch tents and sleep on sidewalks outside the EMU.
“The staff at the EMU and campus policy dictates that there is no camping allowed on campus,” said DPS Corporal Scott Cameron.
Cameron said students were allowed to stay outside in line, but not allowed to pitch tents or sleep on the ground. DPS arrived around 10 p.m. last night to inform student campers of the rule.
The EMU policy that disallowed camping had been relaxed over past years, Cameron said, but recently campers’ drinking, urinating in public and causing damage to the terrain had spurred EMU administrators to enforce the policy more strictly.
“They want to work with you guys; they want you to be out here, but they can’t have it looking like a tent city,” he said.
Students pitched at least 10 tents along the walkway behind Straub Hall and right in front of the doorway to the EMU ticket office.
University student Jessica Williams, whose tent sat directly in front of the door to the EMU ticket office, said she was disappointed that she and her friends couldn’t stay in the tent, but that they still planned to stay in line.
“If they want to get fans out for basketball games and they want to get a big crowd, then I think they should be supporting us coming out here this early, and not trying to kick us out,” she said.
“I think they should have told us early if they knew that it was going to be a problem,” Williams said, “rather than having us be out here so early.”