Over the past few days, on November 3rd and November 4th of 2021, the students of UGA were caused extreme distress and were outraged by the presence of a man named Daniel Rusk, along with his small posse of followers who claim to be part of a group called Walkabout Jesus.

This group has been known for a number of years now to be an extremely radical group who displays misogynistic, racist and homophobic views and openly used hate speech against the students of the University of Georgia, as well as every other place that that’s had the displeasure of hosting them, in an extremely provocative manner, intended to arouse unrest amongst the students who reside on campus and have the unfortunate luck to run across his “preaching.”

Not only does he display values that don’t accurately depict that of those who choose to follow Christianity as their faith, but he has the indecency to use the Bible and Jesus to justify his cruel words and horrid beliefs that he holds close to his heart. He gives a bad name to everyone who follows Christianity, which could lead to the development of harmful stereotypes.

On top of all these already horrible things, he makes use of hate speech against young college students who are simply trying to go about their day and receive the education that they are paying for. For example, he has been caught on record doing the following things while “preaching”:

• He claims that “women rape men’s eyes with their revealing clothing”, referring to leggings and yoga pants.
• Rusk claimed that women are weaker than men, simply because they’re smaller and more easily deceived.
• Rusk claimed that “women shouldn’t be allowed to vote because men are the head of the household.” 
• Rusk called prophets “pedophiles” when talking to muslim students in an extremely disrespectful and derogatory manner, calling them all awful people to justify his own cruel words.
• Rusk called numerous students of differing sexual and gender identities “faggots”, “homos”, and “rectum rippers”. 
• Rusk called the black student the n-word, with the hard r.
• Rusk said that gay sex is perverted and sodomites are all going to burn in hell.

While I’m a massive supporter of the first amendment right to the freedom of speech, it’s absurd that the University of Georgia not only allows this group to protest on University land, they also force students to “be respectful” of them, which includes preventing students from bringing out signs of their own to protest against Rusk, silencing students who are trying to share their own opinions and thoughts, albeit in a much more respectful way than Daniel Rusk chooses to do, and not doing anything to stop Rusk from openly inciting unrest amongst our community. And the reason that the University is choosing to protect these openly homophobic, racist, and misogynistic individuals? It’s because the group is paying to be situated in the middle of the campus, near the Tate Student Center.

The University of Georgia is openly accepting money from Daniel Rusk and his followers so that they can protest within the Tate Student Center area, which is indirectly supporting their cause by allowing them to cause such a large amount of unrest amongst students. While it’s fairly likely that the University will release a statement somewhere along the lines of “We do not support the beliefs of Daniel Rusk and Walkabout Jesus”, it’s important that the University is held accountable for their actions and allowing such a horrible group to openly protest in the middle of our campus, just because they paid to do so.

As a member of the LGBTQ community at the University of Georgia, I’m appalled the University’s lack of support for the women, racially diverse, and those of different sexual and gender identities who are all negatively impacted by the horrible and hurtful words of Daniel Rusk. He is presenting a hurtful message that is causing mental strain on all of the students in our community.

Not only is this hurting the students on a personal, emotional, and mental level, but it’s also distracting from the University’s mission of providing a safe place to learn for all of their students. Daniel Rusk and his followers are distracting students from their studies by causing so much unrest amongst our community of student.

So, while the University might claim that they don’t have the right to do anything so long as Daniel Rusk is not disrupting their educational mission, it is clear that this man is doing everything in his power to disrupt that mission by harassing the students of our community, and he needs to be banned from stepping foot on the University of Georgia’s campus ever again. We do not need such a horrible group spreading unrest amongst our students, and we refuse to stand idly while the University indirectly supports a group of misogynists, racists, homophobics, and bigots.