Students walk through Winona State University’s courtyard by the gazebo every day. Whether it’s walking to a different academic building during a passing period, lying out in the grass with friends, or attending events hosted outside throughout the year. On April 16, 2025, a student-led counter protest took place on the heart campus. What started as the third day of a religious group, called Missionaries to the Preborn, doing their “Spring Campus Tour,” ended with a protest at Winona State from its students, community members, and staff.
This ‘tour’ included going to different college campuses (first, going to UW Eau Claire, UW River Falls, and then Winona State) to hand out what they call their “literature” describing their anti-abortion views, holding large posters with graphic and gory photos of fetuses. These signs and “literature” often quote misinformation as they entered the university’s most common places outside. Another aspect to this space is the right to protest, and following Winona State’s 4-4 policy on the use of University Space/Facilities.
“Winona State University maintains its right to place reasonable restrictions on time, place, and manner for acts of expression and dissent,” Winona State’s current 4-4 Policy on the use of University Space/Facilities policy reads. “Any acts that are disruptive to the regular and ongoing operations of the university, including classes and university business as well as events scheduled on campus, will not be permitted.”
Concerns arose when students were trying to pass by the courtyard and felt pressured and harassed to take a pamphlet from the Missionary to the Preborn protesters. Students and those parked in the university parking lots also started to see pamphlets with graphic images on their cars.
After seeing the massive signs with graphic images, many students were disheartened and uncomfortable. This only escalated when some students were pressured beyond taking a pamphlet in the form of being walked with to their dorm or their academic building and being yelled at or called a “baby killer” when they were just passing through. This led to relatively large-scale counterprotests launched by students quickly..
At around 11 am, students gathered in the courtyard holding signs in a counterprotest to the people from Missionaries to the Preborn. Students at the spur of the moment also made signs from notebook paper, most likely using the materials they already had in their school bags. Some read “Trust Women,” “You can only ban safe Abortions,” and “Bans off our bodies.”
Callisto Dungy, a third-year student who was at this counter protest, shares why they felt the need to help with this counter protest.
“I participated in the counter protest so that I could help other fellow students on campus feel safe,” Dungy said. “They, [pro-life advocates], were not here to debate but instead spread hate and misinformation.”
In a short period of time many students showed up with signs and some began chalking the sidewalks to denote that there was misinformation being spread by these campus visitors. There was also a tunnel created where students made a pathway with themselves and their signs to help block the view of graphic images and to allow students to safely pass by these pro-life advocates without being bombarded with misinformation or harassed.
During this time, the Reproductive Justice club began handing out condoms, dental dams, and Plan B as well as informational guides about safe abortions and the options someone who is pregnant has. There was a feeling of awe that many students commented had at seeing such a large-scale movement at Winona State. However, others took notice of administrators standing off to the side, remaining neutral, which took away from the awe.
Karina Kpahn, a fourth-year student at Winona State and the current president of the Reproductive Justice club, was one of those people who took notice.
“The “awe” wore off once I saw administrators sitting on the sidelines, not intervening or protecting students. Students and some professors, mainly WGSS and film, were the ones who put themselves in harm’s way to protect other students,” Kpahn said.
The Reproductive Justice club had just gone to UW Madison’s women’s and gender studies consortium the week before this protest. At this consortium, they spoke about how universities are often sites of settler colonialism, and it often leaves to putting profits over the safety of students.
“It was jarring to see an actual example of the university choosing not to protect their students and try to stay neutral throughout the whole thing.” Kpahn said.
Near the end of the pro-life protest, as they were leaving, students and protesters clashed, resulting in them shouting in one another’s faces. This did not evolve into a larger-scale physical argument, but it did result in the lead protester yelling in the student’s face, and students had to step between the two to ensure the safety of all parties.
In a Facebook post after the event, Matt Trewhella, who led this pro-life protest group on campus, states, “Students became unruly and the police had to intervene numerous times.” This, however, is not true as there was no visible campus security presence at the time, nor was there a police presence on campus during the events of this protest. The people who got involved to de-escalate the situation were students and professors.
During this counter protest launched by students, there were people taking pictures and videoing from all sides. However, Trewhella posted pictures of students who were protesting, and there have since been numerous comments under his facebook post attacking students’ looks, viewpoints, and what Winona State stands for as a campus.
President Kenneth Janz, who was not present on campus at the time of this counter protest, notes this as a result of free speech on campus.
“At Winona State University, we uphold the right to free speech and peaceful assembly, and we recognize that different viewpoints may sometimes create tension within shared spaces. While I was not personally present during the demonstration, I have been fully briefed by campus leadership,” Janz said. “Based on reports shared with me, the event began with external visitors exercising their right to free expression in a designated public area of campus. A range of student responses occurred throughout the day, reflecting the diversity of perspectives within our community.”
The concept of free speech was also discussed in an email sent out close to a week after the protest occurred. A statement over email was sent by Janz from the university describing what occurred was free speech on campus. This email talked about how both sides of the protest were exercising the right to free speech, however, students were given a suggestion in the email, “While engagement can be a powerful tool for change, choosing when and how to participate is a personal choice. Sometimes the best response in distressing circumstances is simply to walk away. If you’ve ever found it impossible to change someone’s mind in a social media thread, it’s worth considering that the campus lawn isn’t any more likely to offer a breakthrough moment,” the university email said.
The email that was sent by the University to students recommended that students walk about from these people on campus, however, the email neglected to talk about how Missionaries to the Preborn were spreading their message across campus. They had large signs, microphones and were harassing students as they passed, but this was not mentioned in the email sent by the university.
“The university/Janz’s response was essentially ‘you can’t change their minds’ and what happened that day was not about changing minds. It was about making sure the campus is a safe space for students,” Kpahn said. “Personally, I think it was ridiculous to call out students for organically organizing a counter protest without even speaking on anything that the other side did.”
The day following this counter protest there was a safe space event in the KEAP center that was organized by WGSS faculty and EIE to talk about the events of the day prior. During this, students were able to talk to Mohamed Ahmed, the Associate Vice President for Equity & Inclusive Excellence, and discuss rules regarding groups coming to campus and work together to create a list of demands that would be sent to the president’s cabinet.
One of the largest issues that has been noted about this protest on campus was the lack of administration intervention. Many students have talked about feeling unsafe, not necessarily because there was a protest, but because of Missionaries to the Preborn and how they treated students.
“I understand it’s a public campus and people can do whatever,” Kaphn said. “but they [Winona State] still haven’t acknowledged that students felt unsafe and some weren’t able to ‘just walk away.’ ”
