A man in a black jacket and a bald head stands with a man in a black jacket with a greying beard and brown hair.

Isaac Hoops/Nevada Sagebrush
Shawn Holes (left) and Keith Darrell (right) came to the UNR campus and got students riled up with their preaching on Nov. 17. Students attempted to drown out their speech by playing music and yelling at them until they were driven off campus.

Update Nov. 18, 11:12 p.m.:

Two preachers — Shawn Holes and Keith Darrell — demonstrated outside the University of Nevada, Reno’s Joe Crowley Student Union on Wednesday, Nov. 17 around 11:45 a.m, spouting hateful speech and targeting students who expressed opposing beliefs.

Both men were conversing and yelling at students stating anti-Semitic, ableist, anti-abortion, transphobic, homophobic and misogynistic sentiments.

Joanna Petersky, a Jewish trans-feminine nonbinary student, started talking back to the Holes and Darrell after being targeted for their gender identity.

“…[Darrell] … started going off on a bunch of anti-semitism crap,” said Petersky. “Like we were responsible for killing Jesus, and hell and damnation was upon us.”

Both men said women should be subservient and the only gender that is correct is the one is assigned at birth. They even went

A woman with orange hair and a floral top stands in front of a man in a black sweatshirt and greying beard

Isaac Hoops/Nevada Sagebrush
Joanna Petersky actively fights back against Darrell as he is yelling at the crowd.

as far as to say that transgender individuals were “mutilated freaks” and compared them to child molesters, according to Petersky.

“…[Darrell] is screaming at me saying that I’m part of this destruction,” said Petersky.

Members of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Dionne Stanfill, chief justice; Jiego Lim, director of Campus Wellness; Kaeli Britt, director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion; Nathan Noble, senator for the College of Liberal Arts; and Tre Taylor, assistant director of Clubs and Organizations; were protesting against Holes and Darrell’s speech by dancing in front of the two men in an attempt to drown them out.

“We appreciate and welcome free speech on this campus and we are proud of our students and officers for using their voices and resources to take a stand,” said Austin Brown, ASUN President. “We encourage all students to make use of the resources available to them here at the University.”

Brown directs students to the universities “Student Expression, Rights and Responsibilities” page, created by ASUN in collaboration with the Center for Student Engagement, to serve as a guideline for students who wish to express their beliefs.

Darrell leads the Whitefield Fellowship, a radical evangelical group, as a campus preacher rallying across various institutions.

Prior to coming to the university, Darrell was arrested on the Boise State University campus for his demonstrations on Sept. 1. According to The Arbiter, Boise State’s independent student newspaper, he promoted hate speech which included white supremacist ideology.

Darrell has been seen on other campuses in the west such as Central Washington and Eastern Washington University.

Often going by his stage name, Shawn the Baptist, Holes has been seen on other campuses such as Montana State University and Colorado Mesa University. When visiting MSU, Holes was pepper sprayed by a bystander, according to the Missoulian.

Holes works as a university preacher for Word for the World Baptist Ministries and Luke 10:2 Ministries. Additionally, Holes gave his website out to students, which has speech stating other religious beliefs are “wrong”.

A similar occurrence happened on campus in 2019 when Campus Ministries USA came to the UNR campus and stated similar speech and ideologies. Holes and Darrell are not affiliated with CMUSA.

A man in a black sweatshirt stands in front of five people with instruments

Isaac Hoops/Nevada Sagebrush
Five UNR students attempt to drown out Darrell with their instruments. Many other students made an effort to drown them out by playing music out of a loud speaker.

Five people playing band instruments were the first to attempt to drown out the preachers at around 1 p.m. after students started to play music such as the “Cupid Shuffle” and ”Anaconda”.

Holes did not take a liking to the Nicki Minaj song and stated that anyone singing it will “burn in hell.”

Moments before the two men left, a student who is often seen breakdancing in front of The Joe appeared as the crowd cheered. While the student continued to dance, the two men packed up their belongings and left at 2:30 p.m.

Later in the day, members of the campus community voiced their concerns to the ASUN senate body at their weekly meeting.

Petersky explained the harassment she experienced and urged the senate to encourage a stricter anti-hate speech policy on campus.

Members of the Senate body were supportive of the proposal made by Petersky and said they are planning to move further in solving this issue so experiences, like Petersky’s, do not happen again on campus.

Six people stand in front of a man on his phone

Isaac Hoops/Nevada Sagebrush
Members of ASUN dance in front of Darrell on Nov. 17.

Many members of the Senate body were questioning if this constitutes harassment, and why they were not kicked off of campus for their speech. It was later clarified that the University of Nevada, Reno Police Department decides what is considered harassment on campus.

Currently, the university’s Public Forum clause in their Administrative Manual states “any individual or group may use campus grounds to exercise this constitutionally protected right.”

The current areas available for freedom of speech on campus are lawns, sidewalks and plazas. Although, the campus reserves the right to terminate the demonstration at any point in time.

This story is ongoing and will be updated as more information is revealed.

Isaac Hoops contributed to this story. 

Emerson Drewes can be reached at andrewmendez@sagebrush.unr.edu or Twitter @EmersonDrewes

Original Story:

Two preachers — Shawn Holes and Keith Darrell — demonstrated outside the University of Nevada, Reno’s Joe Crowley Student Union on Wednesday, Nov. 17 around 11:45 a.m, spouting hateful speech and targeting students who expressed opposing beliefs.

Both men were conversing and yelling at students stating anti-Semitic, ableist, anti-abortion, transphobic, homophobic and misogynistic sentiments.

Joanna Petersky, a Jewish trans-feminine nonbinary student, started talking back to Holes and Darrell after being targeted for their gender identity.

“…[Darrell] … started going off on a bunch of anti-semitism crap,” said Petersky. “Like we were responsible for killing Jesus, and hell and damnation was upon us.”

Both men said women should be subservient and the only gender that is correct is the one is assigned at birth. They even went as far as to say that transgender individuals were “mutilated freaks” and compared them to child molesters, according to Petersky.

“…[Darrell] is screaming at me saying that I’m part of this destruction,” said Petersky.

Members of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Dionne Stanfill, chief justice; Jiego Lim, director of Campus Wellness; Kaeli Britt, director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Nathan Noble, senator for the College of Liberal Arts; and Tre Taylor, assistant director of Clubs and Organizations; were protesting against Holes and Darrell’s speech by dancing in front of the two men in an attempt to drown them out.

The Nevada Sagebrush reached out to ASUN but did not receive immediate comment.

Darrell leads the Whitefield Fellowship, a radical evangelical group, as a campus preacher rallying across various institutions.

Prior to coming to the university, Darrell was arrested on the Boise State University campus for his demonstrations on Sept. 1. According to The Arbiter, Boise State’s independent student newspaper, he promoted hate speech which included white supremacist ideology.

Darrell has been seen on other campuses in the west such as Central Washington and Eastern Washington University.

Often going by his stage name, Shawn the Baptist, Holes has been seen on other campuses such as Montana State University and Colorado Mesa University. When visiting MSU, Holes was pepper sprayed by a bystander, according to the Missoulian.

Holes works as a university preacher for Word for the World Baptist Ministries and Luke 10:2 Ministries. Additionally, Holes gave his website out to students, which has speech stating other religious beliefs are “wrong”.

A similar occurrence happened on campus in 2019 when Campus Ministries USA came to the UNR campus and stated similar speech and ideologies. Holes and Darrell are not affiliated with CMUSA.

Five people playing band instruments were the first to attempt to drown out the preachers at around 1 p.m. After, students started to play music such as the “Cupid Shuffle” and ”Anaconda”.

Holes did not take a liking to the Nicki Minaj song and stated that anyone singing it will “burn in hell.”

Moments before the two men left, a student who is often seen break dancing in front of The Joe appeared as the crowd cheered. While the student continued to dance, the two men packed up their belongings and left at 2:30 p.m.

Later in the day, members of the campus community voiced their concerns to the ASUN senate body at their weekly meeting.

Petersky explained the harassment she experienced and urged the senate to encourage a stricter anti-hate speech policy on campus.

Members of the Senate body were supportive of the proposal made by Petersky and said they are planning to move further in solving this issue so experiences, like Petersky’s, do not happen again on campus.

Many members of the Senate body were questioning if this constitutes harassment, and why they were not kicked off of campus for their speech. It was later clarified that the University of Nevada, Reno Police Department decides what is considered harassment on campus.

Currently, the university’s Public Forum clause in their Administrative Manual states “any individual or group may use campus grounds to exercise this constitutionally protected right.”

The current areas available for freedom of speech on campus are lawns, sidewalks and plazas. Although, the campus reserves the right to terminate the demonstration at any point in time.

This story is ongoing and will be updated as more information is revealed.

Isaac Hoops contributed to this story. 

Emerson Drewes can be reached at andrewmendez@sagebrush.unr.edu or Twitter @EmersonDrewes