One small step for a Bias Response Team, one giant leap for free speech? Close enough.
The Daily Emerald reports that when “confrontational evangelists” showed up at the University of Oregon last week, preaching that students should repent of their sin, students reacted the appropriate way: by peacefully disagreeing!
A small group of women, including the UO Bias Response Team, held signs in protest of the presence of Campus Ministry USA while dozens of students looked on. Some signs stated “You are loved the way you are” and “You’re not going to hell.”
There was some “light scuffling,” according to bystanders, and the University of Oregon Police Department came to the scene, but did not intervene.
Maure Smith-Benanti is the coordinator of the Bias Response Team at the UO.
“They have a right to be here due to freedom of speech,” Smith-Benanti said. “The Bias Response Team believes the best way to respond to hate and offensive speech is with more speech. Additionally, the Bias Response Team believes in peaceful protest.”
Sadly, this is an amazing response from students at a university. Rather than try to shut down those you disagree with, you tell them you disagree with them and you let them disagree with you peacefully.
Not by making such a racket that no one can hear them, or taking their signs, or physically blocking people from talking to them or seeing their message.
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