Oxford – Students leaders at the University of Mississippi who are fighting campus administrators in their effort to keep the mascot their beloved “Colonel Reb” were surprised this week when Facebook disallowed their ability to send messages to their

members. 

Their Facebook group, which increased from 2500 members to over 6000 members in just the last 10 days, supports the campus mascot that has been at Ole Miss for almost 70 years.  But last week Facebook ended their ability to send messages to any of their supporters just days before a campus wide vote in their “Vote No” campaign for a new mascot set for Feb. 23.

Colonel Reb Foundation Student Leader Hannah Loy said, “Facebook started as a company that was there to help students communicate, but now it looks like they have truly joined adult corporate America by attacking the very students that got the corporation their beginning.”

The public relations firm the students have employed contacted Facebook representatives, including COO Sheryl Sandberg, to get an explanation for the disabling of their account.  Loy stated, “It is amazing that they took our advertising money to grow our group, but then they take away our functionality once they cashed the checks. I am ashamed that in an era where Google is fighting for First Amendment freedoms in China their Internet adversary Facebook has decided to erase our First Amendment rights right here in America.”

The Colonel Reb Foundation has escorted a Colonel Reb look-alike into football, basketball, baseball, and other athletic venues at Ole Miss ever since the athletic department chose in 2002 to become the only SEC school without a mascot.  In 2003 the Associated Student Body voted to keep Colonel Reb as the official mascot of Ole Miss, and a subsequent campus-wide vote showed that 94 percent of students at Ole Miss wanted to keep Colonel Reb as the mascot of Ole Miss. 

The Administration refused and the Foundation’s student members have been the keeper of the tradition ever since.

The Colonel Reb Foundation is a non-profit organization formed by students at Ole Miss in 2003 dedicated to preserving the 70-year tradition of having Colonel Reb as the mascot and logo of the University of Mississippi.

For more information:  Colonel Reb Foundation, P.O. Box 2561, Oxford, Miss., 38655, www.SaveOleMiss.com.