Student ‘fights the good fight’ and wins after paying parking ticket with coins

For Wichita State University student Brian Hayes — Wednesday was a “good day for justice.”

Hayes, the photo editor for the university’s newspaper The Sunflower and freelancer for The Eagle, was fined $25 for parking in a parking garage without a permit. He thought it was open parking after 5 p.m., but it wasn’t.

He decided to pay the fine in 600 nickels. But when he went to Jardine Hall, he parked illegally again and was slapped with another parking fine.

He returned to Jardine to pay the second parking fine and buy a parking permit with 90 crumpled dollar bills, $5 in quarters and $5 in dimes. But adding his two cents about the university’s parking by using change and small bills annoyed university staff.

“An employee informed me she would file a complaint with Student Conduct for bringing wadded-up ones and change,” Hayes wrote in a column that ran Monday in The Sunflower.

On Wednesday morning, he found himself in a meeting with the assistant director for student conduct. He didn’t know what penalties he faced and Hayes told The Eagle it was “the most trouble I’ve ever been in.”

During his meeting, any charges Hayes could have faced were dropped, he said.

“I had to have an ‘educational talk.’ But during the student conduct’s investigation they found I wasn’t wrong,” he said. “They had no leg to stand on.”

Celebrating his victory, Hayes told friends on Facebook to “keep fighting the good fight.”

This story was originally published February 14, 2018 at 9:17 AM with the headline "Student ‘fights the good fight’ and wins after paying parking ticket with coins."