By Karissa Chittavong and Ashley Escobar
Online/Social Media Manager and Editor-in-Chief
The recent public demonstration of speech by The Official Street Preachers on Amarillo College continues to spark questions on the safety and protections that the freedom of speech clause provides on college campuses.
“We become too comfortable with allowing people to say what they want without being concerned about the mental impact, the harm it does to people, the way it makes people feel or the way it impacts classes,” Foster Connor, a mass media major said.
“I mean, how is a kid supposed to focus if they’re in class thinking about being called the F-slur or if they’re being told they’re too fat to be married,” Connor said. “It just ruins people’s ability to focus. It’s like showing the worst of humans and we basically let it happen because we’re afraid of free speech being impeded and that doesn’t make sense.”
Amarillo College does maintain the institutional commitment to the free and open exchange of ideas that extends to public forums on campus.
Vice President of Academic Affairs, Frank Sobey, said that the group should be able to engage with faculty and fellow students about big ideas, the purpose of existence and the human condition.
“As an administrator, who follows the board of regents policy manual, I’m perfectly okay with a group like that being on campus, freely and openly sharing their ideas,” Sobey said. “But, as a member of the AC family, I object to their tactics, as they aren’t designed to accomplish a worthwhile goal in any educational environment.”
Paralegal major, Haelis Amundgaard said they felt disheartened as a student in one of the categories the preachers targeted.
“I attempted to engage them in a good faith conversation and they yelled and talked over me,” Amundgaard said. “I realized that they really weren’t here to convert people or “save souls” or whatever they claimed, they were here to cause chaos and fuel their own self-righteous persecution complexes. After that, I was just kind of annoyed that they had disrupted my studying environment and a place of higher education, with absurd neo-puritan nonsense.”
Business administration and marketing major, Theo Ruzicka, said he felt violated the minute David Grisham began holding up signs highlighting certain sins in the Bible and throwing accusatory statements at passing students.
“I was trying to do my homework and I’ve always considered Amarillo College as a safe space, but that day made me feel vulnerable. I think Amarillo College did what they could to a degree. However they should not have been allowed to stand outside of the cafe at the very least,” Ruzicka said
Sobey hopes that through his job, he is able to encourage the AC community to have rich and meaningful conversations, even with those who hold different beliefs.
“To cultivate civic mindedness, you aren’t just learning a discipline and skillset, but you’re learning how to be a more participatory individual in our society,” Sobey said. “Able to contribute meaningfully, within democracy itself. People are gonna make their own choices about how they engage.”
Some students questioned the Amarillo College Police for not interfering according to the ACPD most of the open areas such as sidewalks are safe spaces for any kind of reasonable protests. As long as protestors remain out of buildings, they are safe from citations.
“As far as Amarillo policies go, they are allowed to protest,” Jeremy Criss, an AC police officer, said. “As far as us impeding, we can’t do that. That’s going to be their constitutional right to be able to be there and say what they want to say.”
Graphic Design Major, Hayden Splawn, said that having a dedicated area for free speech and making it known across campus would help situations similar to the past one, less shocking. He said that most students are not aware of AC being a public forum, which leads to a lot of confusion when weighing out how much the freedom of speech rights are designed to protect students and protestors alike.
“While I felt angered by what the outside group said on our campus, I’m glad to know that parts of AC can be used to express the first amendment,” Splawn said.
Ruzicka said that while the First Amendment is important to upkeep, he feels that it should vary based on the situation.
“Even though Amarillo College is a public campus to my knowledge, the students still deserve to feel safe at an institution that they pay to be at,” Ruzicka said.
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