Several students distributed pamphlets protesting the college’s relationship with the Walt Disney Company and its CEO and president, Robert Iger ’73, in front of the Whalen Center for Music, where Iger addressed the campus at noon today.

The pamphlets the students handed out alleged that the Disney corporation “has many questionable practices regarding its labor practices, media portrayal and ownerships, environmental impacts, misrepresentation of history and current events and its political lobbying campaign.”

Junior Alison Bliss, one of the students who handed out the informational pamphlets, said the college should question an affiliation with a corporate conglomerate like the Walt Disney Company.

“Disney owns a huge amount of media,” she said. “We’re a huge media communications school. They’re just gaining control of so many things, and at a place like Ithaca College, which is so progressive, I feel very odd about having corporate sponsorship.”

After about 10 minutes of handing pamphlets to other students at the door, Bliss and sophomore Sarah Brylinsky were forced to leave by David Prunty, director of campus life services, who informed them that they were violating the college’s solicitation policy by forcing others to accept their information.

“It’s not the context we’re screening,” Prunty said. “The solicitation policy is for the protection of everyone. We don’t allow people to approach people and pass out information. You need a permit.”

In the Ithaca College Policy Manual, the solicitation policy states, “Students may not sell, solicit, advertise, or canvas on College-owned or operated property or solicit parents, alumni, or members of the campus community without advance authorization from the Campus Center office.”

The students also said they had been contacted the night before by the president’s office by a person who was “very concerned” about possible protests getting disruptive. Bliss said they had no plans to protest, only to inform students attending the speech.

Brylinsky said though she had heard Iger was “a nice guy,” she said the college should reconsider accepting his donations because the actions of his company were at odds with Ithaca College’s progressive attitude.

“He’s not separate from [the company] just because he’s a nice guy,” she said. “He is representative of all that Disney stands for.”

Alan Gomez, assistant professor in the Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity, read one of the pamphlets before the speech. He said students at the college should question the college’s affiliation with a large corporation with Disney, and in turn, he said, the college should listen to the alternative viewpoints of students.

“Disney has historically misrepresented people of color and … has taken part in sweatshop labor,” he said. “The students are bringing up valid issues that should not be disregarded because of the amount of money involved.”