Peace campers leave

After a nearly eight month long vigil in Dunn Meadow, the peace campers have decided to pack up and ship out.\nSean "Steps to Freedom" Bagley informed Dean Richard McKaig on Wednesday that the peace campers will have Dunn Meadow cleaned up and back to normal by Saturday.\n"Basically, I informed the administration today that due to the fact that the peace camp hasn't lived up to what I was hoping it would become, it was necessary for me to withdraw my efforts from the peace camp," Bagley said. "I'm going to try to get everything out by Saturday, but that will depend in part on whether other people get their stuff out."\nHe said the worse case scenario would be coming back at the end of July if the meadow could not be cleaned up by Saturday.\nBagley, who is not a student, is the only one remaining in Dunn Meadow this summer, one of the reasons he decided to call it quits. \n"For the first couple weeks it was beautiful," Bagley said. "It did what it intended to do in the beginning. It got people talking about what was going on where they hadn't been doing that before."\nBut the camp started to die out as the months went on.\n"A bunch of people burned-out really quickly," Bagley said.\nAt first, Bagley believed the camp would only get stronger as the months went on.\n"In general, a lot of people have already started removing their stuff," Bagley said.\nDean Richard McKaig was beginning to raise questions about the peace camp and any policies it might be violating, such as if only students were in the meadow and if they were actually sleeping in Dunn Meadow.\n"The policy does not allow overnight camping," McKaig said. \nBut the policy was never broken because the peace campers rotated, rather than sleeping in Dunn Meadow. However, the policy does allow organized free speech, such as 24-hour vigils.\n"There's kind of a fine line between camping and free speech," McKaig said.\nMcKaig and the University's physical plant provided two dumpsters to the campsite within minutes of talking with Bagley to help clean and restore Dunn Meadow. The University is also taking care of restoring the landscape.\nBagley was confident McKaig supported what the camp was attempting to accomplish all along.\n"I generally believed that the Dean supported my right to be here and would've continued to support my right to be here as long as it was living up to what it was supposed to be," Bagley said.\nMcKaig, taking no action against the peace camper, despite concerns and complaints from students and Bloomington residents, echoed the importance of the First Amendment.\n"I very much appreciate the traditions of free speech on a college campus," McKaig said.\nScott Perez, sophomore, believes the peace campers were doing a great thing but lost sight of why they were there in the first place.\n"It kind of sounds like a waste now after being there so long," Perez said. "I believe they have made a statement, and I hope they return if the situation abroad or here in the U.S escalates."\nBagley said the peace camp may return to Dunn Meadow if the the war on terror escalates and told McKaig not to be surprised if the campers return. \nBut Bagley feels that overall, the peace camp was effective.\n"I presented something different and that was very important," Bagley said. "Finally, eight months later, some of the things that I've been talking about since immediately after Sept. 11 are finally getting into the news"