After hearing about the Student Rights Program and what it has done across the nation Alec Woodruff at SUNY Oneonta took it upon himself to fight back against a pepper spray ban present on his campus. Alec started off strong but sought advice and help from YAL’s Student Rights team.

With the help of the Student Rights Department Alec crafted a strategy to push forward with his petition and the student responded in kind and hundreds of students began to sign the petition and call for change on campus. Alec brought this to the attention of the school administration who initally laughed at the proposition of changing the policy citing absurd dangers associated with pepper spray and claimed using a water bottle in self defense would be equally as effective.

This disregard for student safety lead to a surge in student support and petition signatures shot up again and the school could no longer ignore the overwhelming support for the change by the student body and in september the policy change recommended by YAL’s Student Rights Department was voted into effect.