MISSION VIEJO – The removal of student posters remembering the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks from a campus building has sparked debate at Saddleback College.

Last week, members of a conservative student group, Young Americans for Freedom, held a weekday remembrance for the victims of 9/11, placing miniature flags on the quad’s lawn and putting up posters in free-speech areas as well as on a building without administrative approval.

Margot Lovett, chairwoman of Saddleback’s history department and a professor of women’s and gender studies, took down the posters Thursday morning, a school official acknowledged.

The posters read “9/11 Never Forget,” with images of the twin towers and other terrorist attacks since then. The students filmed Lovett on a cellphone and put the footage on YouTube, where it had collected about 175,000 views.

In the video, Lovett approaches the students, politely tells them that putting posters on buildings violates school policy and directs them to student services for further instructions.

Representatives from Young Americans for Freedom, who are working through the annual process of becoming an active student club, said the policy on posting items on walls is vague, missing from the student handbook, and another example of bureaucratic red tape preventing students from expressing themselves.

They also said Lovett had overstepped her authority as a department chairwoman and professor by taking down the posters, suggesting that if the group had been rallying for a more traditionally liberal cause, she would have left them untouched.

The posters cost about $270, said Kyle Chiu, vice president of the Saddleback chapter of Young Americans.

“If you’re a chair or dean, it is expected you would have some kind of neutrality,” Chiu said. “It makes us feel the school doesn’t want us.”

Lovett did not respond to requests for comment. But the administration said policy prohibits posting anything on buildings without permission because the school wants to maintain its aesthetics.

The school did allow the posters in the free-speech areas and the flags to remain, said Jennie McCue, a Saddleback spokeswoman.

Typically, students who put up unauthorized posters would be asked to remove them, or custodians would.

On Monday, Tod Burnett, the college’s president, and other school officials met with the Young Americans. The conversation centered on improving the processes for becoming an active club and clarifying the rules for putting up posters.

“We are very happy with the progress we’ve made with the students,” said a statement from Saddleback, “and look forward to a more collaborative relationship in the future.”

“It was a good conversation,” Chiu said. “We just want to memorialize 9/11.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 or chaire@scng.com