Univ. of Georgia NORML in hot water over Bulldog logo t-shirts

(RedandBlack.com) A club that sold a T-shirt with the image of Hairy Dawg smoking marijuana and sitting by the Arch is in trouble because of the University’s logo policy.A member of the Georgia chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws drew the picture of the University mascot during the fall 2008 semester. The group put the image, drawn by sophomore Greg Stone, on 50 t-shirts and its Web site.

NORML President Wojciech Kacowski said his organization was contacted via e-mail on Feb. 11 by Megan Janasiewicz, a program adviser for the Center for Student Organizations. Janasiewicz instructed NORML to remove the image from its Web site and to stop distributing T-shirts, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Red & Black.

If NORML didn’t follow the University’s instructions, the group’s status as a student organization would be in question, the e-mail stated.

Later in the week, Janasiewicz sent Kacowski an e-mail to notify him that the club could continue selling the T-shirts.

“We understand that this fundraiser probably supports your organizations initiatives and are willing to acquiesce in this matter,” Janasiewicz wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Red & Black. “Please remember to have all future shirt designs approved by the University.”

But the matter was not resolved. On Monday, Kacowski received a contradictory e-mail from Joshua Podvin, assistant director of student activities and organizations.

Podvin wrote the Office of Legal Affairs asked the Center for Student Organizations to have NORML turn in all unsold T-shirts and to take the image off its Web site by today at 5 p.m., according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Red & Black.

I checked out the logo policy at University of Georgia and it appears the visage of “Hairy Dawg” is property of the athletic department.  But if UGA NORML’s bulldog is supposed to be Hairy Dawg, then he’s lost his cap and collar and gotten a lot of Botox injections.

The arch is part of the UGA logo, however. But the UGA arch isn’t covered with marijuana vines and, in a somewhat M.C. Escher sort of way, that center column of the arch can’t possibly be footed along the same plane as the outer columns without embedding directly in Botox Dawg’s lower spine. I believe the center column actually rests behind the front face of the arch, thus rendering it a frame of a poorly-built lean-to.

UGA NORML sold out of the fifty shirts and the resulting controversy over a bulldog head and a weed-covered arch has informed people far outside Athens, Georgia, that there is a college NORML chapter there. Let this be a lesson to everyone involved. I’m not sure what the lesson is, though.