With guidance from university administrators, Virginia Tech student representatives are moving the location of a counter-protest against the Westboro Baptist Church to the Graduate Life Center Plaza neighboring Squires Student Center.
The Topeka, Kan. church, known for its anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric, is scheduled to protest in Blacksburg on Friday, April 9. The group will protest in downtown Blacksburg, outside of Blacksburg High School and in front of the Blacksburg Jewish Community Center.
According to student representatives, the counter-protest would start about noon on the day of the protest. No times for the counter-protest have been finalized.
Related: Letter to the Tech community from Gil and Dan Harrington sent Thursday evening
While it had been decided initially that students would protest across the street from the church’s demonstrations, university officials advised that a change in location would be best. The request to change the location came in the form of an e-mail from Ed Spencer, vice president for student affairs.
Spencer, in the e-mail sent Wednesday, said the change would divert media attention from the protest and possibly stifle violent reactions.
“Inevitably, the hateful signs, words, and actions of a protestor try the patience of a counter-protestor and an angry and often physical confrontation develops,” Spencer wrote. “Let’s not take that risk; let’s relocate the counter-protest away from the location of the WBC protest.”
At a meeting of the Commission on Student Affairs yesterday, Spencer said the group has “a hate message.”
“It’s antithetical to everything that Virginia Tech stands for in its Principles of Community,” Spencer said.
He said the change in venue would act as a “good preventative measure.”
“When you have a group like WBC, you’re better diverting attention away,” Spencer said.
At a March 27 meeting hosted by Student Government Association President Brandon Carroll, doctoral student Mathis Kennington was given the responsibility of planning the official counter-protest to the church’s downtown Blacksburg demonstration. That protest is planned to take place at the corner of Main Street and Roanoke Street.
“I’ve been around these folks enough, they really can provoke violent responses,” Kennington said. “It’s good there’s some organization, because the more unified you are, the less likely there will be a violent response.”
Kennington said that while the potential for violence is there, moving the counter-protest draws attention away from church protestors.
“Taking attention away from those protestors gives a safer context for a counter message,” Kennington said.
Carroll stressed the effectiveness of a unified response.
“It’s important we’re all on the same page,” Carroll said.
Susan Anderson, vice mayor of Blacksburg and a Tech mathematics professor, said the outcry brought back memories of a Ku Klux Klan march in the early 1990s.
The group demonstrated in the streets of downtown Blacksburg on Jan. 21, 1991, coinciding with the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
A writer from the Los Angeles Times covered the demonstration, writing, “about 500 people taunted 30 KKK members who marched in Blacksburg surrounded by more than 200 police officers.”
Anderson was among those in attendance, and took pictures during the protest.
“Our community very clearly showed the KKK that we are a very tolerant community, that we don’t have the same values,” Anderson said. “To the best of my knowledge they haven’t marched anywhere in the region since.”
Anderson complimented Tech students, saying she was “impressed” by the tone of the counter-protest.
“It’s been very positive, very upbeat in relation to this,” Anderson said. “I haven’t seen anger or animosity.”
The Westboro Baptist Church’s downtown Blacksburg protest will focus predominantly on Morgan Harrington. The 20-year-old education major was found dead in late January after going missing in October during a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Va.
Morgan’s parents, Dan and Gil Harrington, issued an e-mail statement yesterday morning denouncing the protest, labeling WBC as “a group of domestic terrorists.”
“Yes there is evil in the world and this latest strike from it is painful and disturbing, but nothing compared to the death blow we have just survived,” Dan and Gil wrote. The pair continued, writing that they would not let “this petty evil topple us.”
“We will not be diverted from these tasks we have taken on in Morgan’s honor,” the Harringtons said. “We will not allow Morgan’s killer to erase her from the world nor these petty thugs to poison her legacy.”
The WBC has previously agreed to discontinue protests relating to the April 16, 2007 campus shootings.