On Tuesday, the campus preacher Brother Jed Smock visited campus, and this time students were ready.
A group of students in the Constitutional Studies Student Association placed a leather couch on the South Oval to sit and listen to Brother Jed preach, this time with popcorn and bingo cards in hand, and get a live demonstration of the extent of their First Amendment rights.
A poly-coated sign with the bold block lettering “You deserve hell,” was held between the aged hands of Brother Jed Smock as he spoke to students walking along the South Oval.
Smock, founder and president of Campus Ministry USA, has been visiting college campuses preaching to students for more than 40 years, he said.
“We want them to start thinking about the eternal questions,” Smock said. “We address the moral and ethical issues of our day, and try to put them in a biblical perspective.”
From the issues of interpreting the Bible to defining right and wrong, Smock and an aspiring preacher from Tulsa, Derek Rich, stood in front of students, bibles in hand, addressing the students he called sinners.
Inspired by Smock’s typical language, the students made a bingo card and filled it out as they listened to his preaching.
The card included phrases or different topics Smock usually brings up, such as warnings about premarital hand-holding and how listening to rock music dooms you to hell.
Along with playing bingo the students, remote in hand, would point at Smock to mute what he said.
Alyssa Sloan, president of the Constitutional Studies Student Association and letters senior, said she had been listening to inflammatory statements for about an hour, crossing various phrases off of her bingo card as she listened.
“We really want to discuss how he’s on public university grounds,” Sloan said. “The state has a compelling interest in providing an education for students and if this is disrupting that, then there may be a legal issue here.”
Sloan said that while Smock’s language is negative and can be disruptive, taking away his freedom of speech could create issues for positive speech.
“Without political discourse, we can’t make any improvements,” Sloan said.
As the preaching continued, more students gathered to watch and giggle.
Keith Strasbaugh, psychology sophomore, stopped on his way from class to observe.
“I’m actually surprised they’re allowing people like that to come onto campus and yell hateful things at students,” Strasbaugh said.
Students of professor Kathryn Schumaker’s Law and Social Movements class took a trip to the South Oval to observe as well.
After reading the Tinker v. Des Moines case, which changed First Amendment law for students in 1969, Schumaker took her students to the Oval.
With Mary Beth Tinker visiting OU’s campus Thursday, Schumaker said Smock’s visit comes at an ironically convenient time.
“It’s an issue of where the line is,” Schumaker said. “Students are being singled out, and I think that’s a problem.”
Members of Shumaker’s class countered Smock’s preaching from the couch, but Smock said the student’s reactions left Smock unfazed.
“I’m encouraged that they’re bothered by what we have to say,” Smock said. “We get their attention because we’re pricking their conscience.”
Smock will be on the South Oval again Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s been really successful to make a political satire of all of this and make it a less tense environment to encourage people to talk about it,” Sloan said. “We really want students to know their rights as well.”
Janny Gandhi, letters senior and student of Schumaker’s class, said she’d had enough of Smock’s preaching.
“A lot of college students are fragile and trying to find their place in life, and people like this disrupt that,” Gandhi said.
