Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her concession speech, two Christian protestors caused disruption on a Texas university campus with signs that branded women “property” and used homophobic slurs.
The incident at Texas State University at San Marcos united students on both sides of the political aisle in anger as the men paraded around for an hour before being escorted off the property.
Eva De Arment, a 19-year-old sophomore, was in the university’s English building waiting for class to start when she saw Snapchat images of the signs, including one that listed “women” and “slaves” alongside cars as “property.”
Horrified, she rushed to the building’s office, asked for a sharpie, grabbed a flyer on the table and wrote: “There is still love in the world! LOVE THY NEIGHBORS.”
“I kind of ran out there and just kind of stood in front of those dudes and started talking,” De Arment told The Independent in a phone call on Wednesday. Trying to distract from the men behind her, she held up her sign and told her peers: “We can’t stand divided like this. We can’t let this hate get to us.”
Scholars say sexism, racism and misogyny helped Trump score a historic second term. The Independent has emailed the Trump campaign for comment. De Arment is now worried she’ll be exposed to more of the sexist rhetoric she heard on campus this week.
“I do believe that there is a nuance that the election made them comfortable enough to come onto a campus with signs like that,” she said. “I am afraid.”
In a written statement, Texas State University said the two protesters who appeared on campus — confirmed to be affiliated with the Official Street Preachers, an organization that “covers global and local events from a Christian perspective,” according to the organization’s website — were not tied to the university.
The institution “supports the First Amendment and is required by state law to uphold freedom of speech in public areas on our campuses, even if such speech may understandably offend some members of our campus community.” The school has established policies and protocols that allow people to engage in expressive activity on campus, the statement concluded.
Evelyn Lopez, 21, arrived at the university’s radio station around 10 a.m. and met up with other students.
“We were kind of just, like, collectively bummed,” she said, reflecting on the results of the election. She got a text from her boyfriend warning her about going into the quad because of the placards. She decided to walk outside and check out the scene for herself.
“The gigantic signs were just not the best thing to see the day after an election,” said Lopez. “Of course, they feel so much comfortable to do this when someone that just got elected and is a convicted felon and has said hateful things towards women.”
Lopez, who is from Houston and majoring in psychology, said the election results made her fearful for her constitutional rights.
Her boyfriend, Cole Ramirez, 22, said he’s never seen “anything this hateful” on campus. He was at the university working on a video assignment about how his peers were feeling after the election. He began walking toward the quad when he heard the commotion and noticed a crowd of hundreds started to form.
“Me and my roommate were absolutely appalled. We really had no words.”
As students continued gathering around the protesters, Ramirez started taking photos that have since gone viral, including one of De Arment counterprotesting with her flyer.
“I knew somebody had to see this,” he said. “Somebody had to document it.”
When De Arment looked out into the crowd, she saw peers wearing MAGA hats and what she called liberal apparel. The students momentarily put their political differences aside and began chanting in unison “love wins” and “love over hate”.
“Those people came on campus to try to sow division, and instead, they kind of brought us together,” she said.
David Gibson, the owner of Dino Jiu Jitsu, a local jiu-jitsu studio, was promoting his business on campus when he heard the noise from a distance. He and his business partner’s 16-year-old daughter decided to hurry over with a couple of their yard signs to physically block the messages.
“I wouldn’t want my daughter or my wife treated that way, and I wouldn’t want my son to come up either doing that same thing,” he said.
Chaos ensued thereafter, De Arment explained, saying people began throwing drinks at the men with the signs. She offered the men a towel but said they refused.
The men left minutes later, once the students had taken their signs and discarded them. University police could not forcibly remove the men in violation of free speech.
The school is exploring potential legal responses, Kelly Damphousse, the university’s president wrote in a letter to students, faculty and staff on Thursday, adding that education officials saw similar scenes at other universities earlier in the day.
A media coordinator for Official Street Preachers, Rich Penkoski, told The Independent the students threw coffee on his members, kicked and spat on them. His group intends to return to the campus with more members, he said, noting that the protest had nothing to do with the presidential election.
On Thursday, Gibson, whose jiu-jitsu studio offers free self-defense classes to women on Fridays, returned to the university with a group of friends trying to spread a different message. Their signs read: “Women are prosperity” and “protect her independence.”
