Twenty-two canvas advertisements, estimated to be worth between $500 to $600 total, were reported stolen from the Diag on Tuesday. The canvas "Diag boards" belonged to nine student groups.
The Department of Public Safety is currently investigating the crime, which is believed to have taken place between 10 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Michigan Advertising Works, which rents the boards to students, will compensate the students for their loss, said manager Betsy Sundholm.
"We plan to give each of the student groups whose signs were vandalized a free spot next semester and free used canvases to make their signs," Sundholm said yesterday.
"We also plan to pursue legally the people who stole the signs if they are caught."
DPS officials said they have no suspects yet.
LSA senior Haaris Ahmad, a member of the Muslim Students Association, said he was not surprised by the theft of the signs.
"This is the third year in a row that Muslim Association has had its sign ripped down. We're extremely disappointed with the regularity this occurs," Ahmad said.
"It's not the money we're worried about. We put a lot of hard work and time preparing the sign. Some people just seem to think they can ignore the law and do what they feel to our sign.
"We are fed up with the whole matter," Ahmad said.
Michigan Student Assembly LSA Rep. Dan Serota agreed with Ahmad.
"I'm running for re-election and someone decides to take my signs down. This will end up costing me about $100," Serota said. "We could redo the signs, but we put a great deal of effort making them the first time and are not sure we can put that same effort we put into the signs to begin with."
Even with MSA elections approaching next week, Serota said the theft won't have any repercussions beyond the financial value.
"I don't think the theft will hurt my re-election chances greatly," he said. "Hopefully it won't have any effect at all on the outcome of this election," added Serota, who is running with the Michigan Party.
Students purchase space to place an advertisement in the Diag for approximately $30 a week.
Sundholm said she hopes this problem can be avoided in the future.
"We don't feel responsible for these thefts because they are a random act by individuals who made a poor choice," Sundholm said. "We plan to sit down and take a long look at all of our options to prevent this from happening again."
Sundholm said MAW is looking at the costs of these options.
"It's unrealistic to put cameras to watch the Diag because of the lack of funding in our budget," she said. "We do, however, plan to have employees of this department make routine visits to the Diag."
Sundholm says she believes the answer is to provider cheaper advertising opportunities for students.
"(The) department is working hard to make more opportunities for students to purchase advertising spaces," she said. "We feel that the less costly the spaces, the more student groups will participate without the fear of having someone destroy their signs and not being able to advertise something they feel is important."
Anyone with information on the crime can contact DPS at 763-1131.