Hate Speech on College Students

 

Religious Protesters Cause Mental Anguish in College Aged Students 

Picture Taken From Bloomsburg University  

According to the According to the Department of Justice, as of 2021, there were 10,840 reported hate crime incidents involving 12,411 offenses. Christian protesters to campuses to “Spread the word of God”, they do this by yelling hateful and offensive comments to the students walking by. I had a personally had an experience with a religious protest myself. I walked out of my class and came across a crowd of students surrounding two middle aged white men with sunglasses on, holding signs. They said; “‘Feminists: promote rape through immodest dress, drunkenness, hanging with homos. Hate men: despise obedience, want all men dead. Murderers: kill their own children. Hate Women: parasites to society, welfare leeches, child support suckers, evil single moms,’ and ‘Feminists are whores.'" Not only did these signs make me distressed, but the callous words they were spouting were worse. As I found my friends through the crowd, I heard the men say to students, “Girls should not go to college because that is where they get raped” and “women belong in the kitchen.” This created an uproar among college students, with a lot of them yelling back remarks. After hearing these comments, I scanned the crowd to see how people were reacting. I saw many college girls looking down with a frown or having their eyebrows furrowed and arms crossed. I could tell people were getting deeply affected by this and were taking to heart the awful comments. If students already had a troubling mental health, this would not be helping them at all. The worst part of this protest is that they were excusing all these actions under the name of God. There have been religious protestors coming to public college campuses since before I can remember, and they will most likely keep turning up every year if there isn’t anything happening to try and stop them. Religious protestors, specifically Christians, coming to campus to promote racist, sexist, and homophobic ideas in the word of God negatively affect the college students.

A person might argue that religious protestors might be the only way college students get introduced to Christianity, that these men are just trying to spread the word of God and that if we are offended, that's not their fault. They might also defend what these men said and use the bible as an excuse to say these things and say that since the bible says it, they can too. They could say that people trying to limit Christian protests on college campuses are violating their rights of free speech and that they’re getting targeted for their religion. They could turn themselves into the victim and act like there is nothing wrong with the hateful behavior they display, since they are spreading “God’s word”. Here's where they are wrong; just because someone's religion says something doesn't mean they can attack people's lifestyle choices and things they cannot change like their sex and race. It’s not the religion that makes students upset, it’s the way the men go about preaching it. The bible also says to love everyone, and saying mean things to people will not make someone think to join their religion. That would do the exact opposite for some people. These protestors are doing the exact opposite of what God tells them to do. Even if this was the only way college students were getting introduced to Christianity, this would not be the way to do it. This would make the students pull against the religion instead of indifferent or toward it. 

An article named, “Protesters prepare for Domino's founder: Some university students oppose Tom Monaghan's religious views” by Times-News says it best: the students are not only disagreeing with these religious protestors but they are protesting against the protest. This was about the founder of dominos coming to Elon University to speak about his Christian views. They don’t agree that people should come onto their campus and preach about how being gay is wrong and saying racist and sexist ideals from the “bible”. They are so disheartened by the protest coming onto their college that they went through the trouble of gathering people and finding a time and place to do their own protest. This shows that the students care deeply enough about this to put themselves into action.

Another articled labeled, “Christian group protests feet away from Penn campus safety event, angering students” described students reactions to a religious protest on a different college campus, Penn Campus. This protest was worse than any protest I’ve been to or have seen before. There were reports saying that the protesters were yelling gay slurs at the students passing by, minding their own business. A student says in the article, “They're legitimately calling the student body very derogatory things. There definitely should be more intervention regardless of the legality of their presence.” This shows how uncomfortable these protests make students, and proves actions need to be done. 

            The final example of this awful behavior Depauw University. An article called, “Christian Extremists Protest at University, Claim Students are Bound for Hell” described the experiences young students had in September of 2015. The article states, “Protestors spewed slurs to students and passersby, calling men "evil" and women promiscuous as well as asking students how many STDs they had.” This is something that could be mentally damaging to students, affecting their mental health. The students “ignored the protest at first but soon hundreds of students gathered, bringing gay pride flags and chanting "we have nothing to lose but our chains.” 

A college campus that is open to protesters is dangerous for the students mental and physical health. If suicidal students were walking around at Penn campus or Depauw University during that protest, that might have been enough to put them over the edge. This is not good for any students, whether they be gay, straight, transgender, white, a minority, etc. Seeing people in conflict is not good for the human brain, and arguing back to the protesters just fuels their hateful fire. There needs to be something done to help protect the physical and mental well-being of the student. The best action that can be done to protect the college students of America is to implicate ways of preventing these protesters from coming onto campus. For example, having a heavier police presence on campus could deter these protesters from coming onto the property. Now if there already is a heavy police presence on a campus, the best thing to do would be to train these officers that it is unacceptable to have these strangers waltz onto the campus and commit hate speech. None of this can happen though unless public colleges make it a rule that these people are not allowed on their campus. It is not fair that students from private colleges get protected from this hate, but students from public colleges have no choice but to see the protesters while walking to class. There needs to be a change to protect the students from such hostility.  

Changing University regulations is never the easiest, but it is something that needs to be done for the safety and protection of college students' mental and physical health. There needs to be laws that allow university workers to remove the protesters from the campus. The more Christian protester come to campus, the more students will suffer. Hopefully if this change was implemented, students wouldn't ever have to hear such hateful talk again.