Members of the MU community voiced concern after Derrick “Hacky Sack Man” Fogle claimed a university employee asked him to turn down his boombox in Speakers Circle following a footbag routine on Oct. 31.
Fogle regularly practices footbag on campus and has done so for 28 years. He often plays at Speakers Circle, a space in which anyone can speak to a crowd without a permit.
Following a series of tweets in which Fogle said a representative from MU asked him to lower the volume of his music, students voiced dissent online, distributed fliers and protested at Speakers Circle. Fogle said the representative cited concern from the School of Law and Fogle’s lack of a permit granting usage of a sound amplification device.
“Someone from the [Reservations and] Events team came up and said, ‘Hey, I need to talk to you about your music. We got some complaints,’ and I’m like, okay, where did the complaints come from?” Fogle said. “I did eventually get them to say that the complaints were apparently coming out of the law school.”
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Since this incident happened, Fogle spoke to Interim Dean Paul Litton from the School of Law and resolved the issue. Litton said that although the complaint was made by an employee, it was not intended to be targeted specifically towards Fogle. It was in reference to multiple loud acts that have been at Speaker Circle, such as the crowd drawn by Sister Cindy.
“The law school is happy with the Hacky Sack Man,” Litton said. “Once in a while we can hear things going on and different events in Speakers Circle … We absolutely support free speech and free activity there, including the hacky sack guy.”
Fogle’s tweets regarding the incident initially sparked concern online before fliers reading “Free Hacky Sack Man” were distributed across campus. Multiple students also took to Speakers Circle in the coming days after the tweets were made with signs showing support for Fogle.
“As a law student, this is absurd. I’ve never heard your music from inside Hulston,” Luke Stange tweeted.
In a video tweeted on Friday, Fogle recorded himself taking down two of the fliers printed in support of the cause to let people know the situation with the law school was resolved.
“I got great news, the hack man is free,” Fogle said in the video. “I’m gonna go ahead and take all these down off of campus. I’m free. I wanna thank the law school for coming out and helping deescalate the situation.”
Although having settled concern between himself and the School of Law, Fogle said he now hopes to address the issue of needing a sound amplification permit to play music in Speakers Circle without the possibility of intervention from MU. The permit focuses on usage for one-off events and not people who regularly perform in a campus space such as Fogle. Included in the application is the need to anticipate audience size, which must be at least 250 people. Despite these restrictions, Fogle has applied twice in the past, prior to the complaint made.
“I tried to participate in that; they rejected the first one I sent in,” Fogle said. “I even asked them for grounds for the rejection and they just completely ignored me. Subsequently they completely ignored every other request and never got back to me at all.”
While waiting for further information on the permit application process, Fogle said he intends to return to playing footbag at least once a week in Speakers Circle. Fogle also said he has plans to lessen the impact of his music on employees in the law school, such as turning his boombox away from the building and lowering its overall volume.
“I’m not in any trouble; nobody wants to chase off the Hacky Sack Man,” Fogle tweeted. “I can play my music. I just need to be respectful of people trapped in offices up in the Law School. I do still want to get the policy fixed though.”
Copy edited by Emily Rutledge
