Members of the Notre Dame community are coming together for StaND Against Hate Week, which aims to raise awareness of the prevalence of hatred both on and off campus.
Maureen McKenney, assistant director for LGBTQ initiatives for the Gender Relations Center (GRC), said StaND Against Hate Week was originally oriented around the LGBTQ community but has evolved in recent years to become more inclusive and holistic.
“It was originally and intentionally around support for LGBTQ students within our community,” she said. “When it came here, we broadened it to really being about promoting the message of human dignity for all.”
StaND Against Hate Week is sponsored by the Gender Relations Center (GRC), as well as Campus Ministry, Multicultural Student Programs and PrismND. Events are scheduled for every day from Monday through Friday.
Free T-shirts will be distributed at North Dining Hall, South Dining Hall and LaFortune Student Center on Monday from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. McKenney said the T-shirts should be worn Friday.
Tim Brown, former Notre Dame football and NFL player, is this year’s keynote speaker. Tuesday at 7 p.m. in DeBartolo Hall 141, Brown will talk about faith, masculinity and racism in his keynote speech and sign books afterward.
“Tim [Brown] is coming back to Notre Dame to talk about many of the same topics in his book “The Making of a Man,” such as faith, how he defines himself as a man, the intersection of masculinity and faith, but also some of his experience with racism within the NFL and how that shaped him as an individual,” McKenney said.
Wednesday night, there will be an ethics and leadership workshop called “Making Choices for Social Justice.” The workshop will be from 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m. in the Coleman-Morse Lounge. McKenney said a large part of the workshop will be devoted to talking through hypothetical situations and examining how ethics determine actions.
“It’s being run by Art Munin, who is a diversity consultant and administrator at Illinois State,” she said. “He brings different diversity workshops around the country, specifically for college students. The purpose of the workshop is to challenge those who attend to consider ways in which values and ethics drive the decisions they make and why they make them.”
There will be a documentary screening Thursday at 7 p.m. in DeBartolo Hall 140. “Forget Us Not” explores the persecution of the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
Friday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., there will be hot apple cider and donuts at Fieldhouse Mall to close out the week. Participants are encouraged to wear the free T-shirts from Monday to this event.
McKenney said the week serves as a reminder that hate and discrimination affect those in our community in many different ways.
“It’s really a way for students to dialogue about ways in which hate and discrimination have a negative impact on people within our community but also the community at large,” she said. “We use hate and discrimination as a very broad category: class, race, religion, socioeconomic situation, sexual orientation, gender identity – really any aspect of one’s personhood is how we define it.”
