Attention petitioners: Go away
April 18, 2018
This article is from a two part debate about petitions on campus. Read the rest here: https://lavozdeanza.com/opinions/2018/04/16/campus-petitions-essential-to-de-anza-awareness/
Petitioners at De Anza College should leave our campus and never come back.
Students at De Anza are constantly bombarded with petitions. Despite the mostly optimistic spirits on campus, some students just want to get to class without the distraction of intolerable petitioners.
They don’t need your time or attention, nor do you owe them anything. They’re smart for coming on to campuses because they can easily pray on the naive, more approachable students and get signatures or a simple response.
These petitioners will often follow you or call you out based on what you’re wearing. If you don’t respond and keep walking, you’ll be met with a mean reaction. A man with a clipboard once ran up to me and said, “Hey pretty lady, you have a moment to talk.” I shook my head and apologized because I was going to be late to class. He replied, “Fine then bitch, I’ll ask another girl.”
Despite my especially horrific experience, no student, professor or any person should have to deal with petitioners on campus. Weirdos can be found on every college campus but petitioners always feel as though they are entitled to guilt-trip or scare students into giving their signatures. We have to bear this especially distasteful behavior almost everyday.
Another danger is that you may be signing something completely different from what petitioners describe. Making up a fake petition is one of the easiest ways to get your personal information and scam you.
Petitions are important; they play a huge part in changes in policy and government. But every student’s time is precious and should be spent on better things than signing a petition out of pity and annoyance.
