By Dr. Clemens, Professor
Marcos Dos Diaz Davila, Freeform Editor 

The Pledge to Stop Hate Group has submitted the following message considering the actions of certain groups:

An Open Letter to the Campus Community,   

As the spring weather arrives, uninvited visitors come and antagonize our students.  These uninvited visitors are permitted to stand on campus and say their hateful words due to free speech laws. Every year, this group comes and upsets our students, most often our students in the LGBTQ community but all marginalized populations can be the target.  This group often monetizes your responses and wants you to engage with them.  It can be hard to ignore people that are denying your right to exist.   

While not giving that group your attention might be the solution to shut them down, asking you to not engage with such hateful speech feels impossible since you are learning to speak up for yourselves at Kutztown—to not remain silent. If you can ignore them and disengage, do so.  If you feel like you need to respond, a group of faculty and staff have created a way to counteract their hateful speech.  

Pledge to Stop Hate gathers donations for specific social justice entities on our campus in response to the uninvited visitors. By supporting our campus services that work every day to fight against injustice, we bolster our campus community’s resolve to love and nurture our students in the face of such hateful rhetoric. You can donate money, time serving the community, or acts of kindness using the pledge form the group created. We also have planned peaceful, on-site action when those uninvited visitors do come.  We are hoping that the plans we have put together will unite our students and allow them to engage with a positive action that ignores the uninvited visitors’ rhetoric. 

To our students in the communities that will be targeted, remember that you belong at Kutztown.  We want you here, we want you to feel safe and cared for.  We stand alongside you in our response to those who question your right to exist. 

Sincerely, 

The Pledge to Stop Hate Working Group