On April 22, 2026, members of the Baylor community gathered across campus — some in Waco Hall, attending a Turning Point USA event; others on the Quadrangle in protest of Turning Point’s presence on campus; and even more in Hankamer-Cashion Academic Center at the opposing All are Neighbors progressive event option.
When the conservative political group announced its upcoming event at the University, it sparked a flurry of protest, garnering statewide attention as Baylor students and faculty navigated what the presence of these different groups said about Baylor and its Christian identity.
In 1968, the former editor of the Baptist Standard, Dr. John J. Hurt, told The Lariat, “The world is in turmoil, and we don’t quarantine controversy. So we can’t escape it when it’s everywhere. But if there is ever rioting on a Baptist campus, there is definitely something the matter with the religious atmosphere.”
But at Baylor, faith and activism have never been quite as opposed as Hurt suggested.
While what follows is not an exhaustive list of all protests that have taken place within the Baylor community, it does highlight some of the protests that have defined Baylor’s decades.
After all, a campus whose history spans 180 years is bound to experience its fair share of controversy.
War and Faith
As young Americans across the nation spoke out against waging war in Europe, Baylor’s students joined in, their protest taking both a political and religious tone.
The Baptist Student Union (BSU) was one of the groups to take up the cause. The BSU arranged for an evening service of the Baylor Religious Hour gathering to be dedicated to addressing the need for peace. Its stance was that pacifism was the only possible “Christian” response to war.
Later, the BSU would establish an official anti-war organization on campus. On April 23, 1936, Baylor joined colleges across the nation in a “student strike in protest against war as a national policy,” according to an article in The Lariat, held during chapel.
But following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Baylor students became significantly involved in the war effort. Many male students left campus to enlist, fighting alongside the Allied powers — and some would never return.
In the men’s absence, the women of Baylor continued to keep the campus running, stepping into new roles and taking on new responsibilities.
While a call for peace might have been the campus attitude in the years leading up to the war, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Baylor students stepped up to the plate, forgoing the traditional college experience to serve their country.
Read more: The Centennial Class of 1945
The Vietnam Era
On April 6th, 1967, the first Vietnam demonstration was held at Baylor. A small group of students and faculty held a silent vigil and passed out pamphlets explaining their pacifist view of the war. By mid-morning, a counter-protest had assembled.
This protest was the first of several that would follow as students and faculty members gathered on both sides, many inspired by their religious convictions.
While it is certainly not the case that everyone at Baylor agreed all the time, there was a culture of restraint that kept chaos and violence at bay, resulting from both Baylor’s campus culture and students’ religious identity.
Read more: Cherry Bombs and Peaceful Prayer
The Playboy Controversy
Protesting at Baylor in the 1980s was marked by one particularly notable campus controversy, which, surprisingly, had nothing to do with the national issues sparking protest on college campuses across the country at the time.
Perhaps even more surprisingly for the Baptist university, it all had to do with Playboy.
Playboy photographer David Chan had been producing a series on college women and planned to visit Baylor. University President Abner V. McCall promptly retorted, stating any female student who posed nude for Playboy would face disciplinary action.
The conflict ignited a surge of protests on campus. On February 19, 1980, The Lariat published an editorial calling out McCall for his threats, and a battle ensued.
McCall responded to the letter, saying The Lariat could only continue its coverage if it shifted its focus to reporting on “the right kind” of news.
Members of the The Lariat staff protested, staging a newsroom walkout. It was the only time in The Lariat’s history that the paper ceased publication. After the paper was shut down, about 25 students gathered in a public demonstration for free press. On February 29, three editors took a stance and wrote one final editorial defending their position.
Ultimately, the Baylor Board of Publications voted to fire all three editors.
After they were fired, another protest began, this time drawing over 100 students. But the decision remained firm. Additionally, multiple professors in the journalism department were either fired or resigned for supporting The Lariat.
Dancing and Baptist Governance
In the 1990s, Baylor began to renegotiate its identity.
First, that came in the form of repealing the dance ban. Baylor’s prohibition on dancing dated back to its founding and was intrinsically tied to its Baptist identity. But starting in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, students began to pressure the University to reconsider. They found workarounds, traveling up to 100 miles off campus to hold “foot functions” (code word for dances).
But while the dance ban was the dominant issue on students’ minds, it was linked to a much larger dilemma: Baylor’s association with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Until 1990, the BGCT elected all of Baylor’s trustees. A charter amendment reduced that percentage to just 25 percent, a shift meant to protect from a fundamentalist takeover and to protect the University’s partnership with the BGCT.
With the reins of the BGCT loosened and student pressure building, the first on-campus dance took place on April 18, 1996, at Diadeloso.
Listen now: Dancing, Laughter, and Divine Improv: An Interview with Molly Murchie
Baylor’s Baptist identity came into question again several years later in 1999 when Archbishop Desmond Tutu was invited to speak on campus.
Conservative students and alumni protested the archbishop’s visit as he described himself as a socialist, supported ordaining gay clergy, and rejected biblical inerrancy. For many members of the Baylor community, Tutu embodied the very thing they were most concerned about: Baylor losing its Baptist identity.
Student Congress called a special session and voted to make all student tickets to the Tutu event free. Anonymous flyers appeared around campus, framing Tutu as the winner of the “Gay and Lesbian Activism Award.”
Despite the pushback, Tutu ultimately visited Baylor and his presence served as a flashpoint for the University as it began to shift away from some aspects of its Baptist identity and prepare for R1 status.
Culture of Silence
One of Baylor’s most public eras of protest came in response to one of the decade’s biggest college sports scandals.
Baylor’s football team was enjoying a running success under the leadership of head coach Art Briles when in 2016 a Baylor student filed a lawsuit against the school. She claimed Baylor ignored warning signs about the violent behavior of football player Tevin Elliot.
In response, over 100 people gathered in front of President Starr’s home to host a candlelight vigil before marching to Truett Seminary for a time of prayer. Additionally, a letter signed by more than 1,300 members of the Baylor community circulated, calling on the University to meet higher standards.
Ultimately, both head football coach Art Briles and former Baylor president Ken Starr were fired.
But the women on Baylor’s campus were not the only ones affected by this culture of silence.
Listen now: Baylor Was Found Liable In a Recent Title IX Case. Hear From the Reporter Who Covered It. — with Dan Solomon
LGBTQ+ Rights on Campus
Amid these questions about a culture at Baylor that fostered secrecy and protected sexual predators, the student body was also asking questions about LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion within the University.
While the LGBTQ+ community group on campus, Gamma Alpha Upsilon, continued to advocate for increased visibility through an official campus charter, members of that community and its supporters also participated in peaceful protests.
By 2019, the conflict had reached new heights. A petition was created urging the administration to formally recognize LGBTQ+ groups. It amassed over 3,200 signatures.
The battle did not end there, and it took continuous protesting, speaking out, and advocating for LGBTQ+ students to receive a charter. Carrying on the torch of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, the LGBTQ+ alliance group PRISM was founded as a chartered organization at Baylor in 2022.
Read more: Baylor’s religious exemption reaffirmed in response to sexual harassment complaints
Racial Reconciliation
Alongside the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, as students on campus grew increasingly frustrated by racial tensions within the Baylor community, they began speaking out in protest.
Shortly after the murder of George Floyd, Baylor students created an Instagram page titled “Dear Baylor.” On the page, they shared accounts from students who had faced discrimination at Baylor because they were not white or Christian.
Their protests led the Board of Regents to pass a resolution on racial healing and justice in June 2020.
In 2021, students planned a protest that coincided with the 176th anniversary of Baylor’s founding and the first day of Black History Month. Students gathered on campus around Judge Baylor wearing all black and carrying signs that read “Black Lives Matter.”
While the Judge Baylor statue remains, the protesting students sparked a conversation at Baylor about its history surrounding race, enslavement, and discrimination. In 2025, Baylor unveiled its Memorial to Enslaved Persons on Fountain Mall as a part of a series of efforts from the University to recognize the racial injustice in its history.
Moving Forward
The events that took place on Baylor’s campus this past spring in response to Turning Point USA carry on a legacy of student and faculty protest. While Dr. Hunt may have believed Baptist campuses should resist protest, Baylor’s history tells a different story.
And if history has anything to say about it, it certainly won’t be the last time students and faculty band together in social protest.
