Holli Hansel, director of communications for the Talawanda School District, said Saxton showed up on the high school’s property early in the morning and shouted at cars passing by.
“I know that he said over and over again that people needed to repent for their sins,” Hansel said. “I also know that he said some nasty and unkind things about the LGBT community and said some really bigoted things in relation to that.”
One photo posted to social media shows Saxton wearing a shirt which described women as property as he stood on Talawanda property. Both Fening and Hansel said they’d heard reports that Saxton had been seen at other high schools in southwest Ohio and Indiana making anti-LGBTQ statements in the past few weeks.
On Sept. 24, other media outlets reported a “religious activist” showed up at Kettering Fairmont High School that morning and “used a bullhorn to shout derogatory statements against the LGBTQ+ community.”
Hansel said students alerted staff in the central office that Saxton was on school property, and the principal, assistant principal, superintendent and school resource officer responded to the situation. OPD officers also showed up on scene, and Saxton briefly moved in front of an apartment complex before leaving.
While the First Amendment protects citizens’ rights to offensive speech, Hansel said public school districts have a right to act when people cause disruptions or use speech that is inappropriate for students.
“Any time that we have an event that disrupts the normalcy of the school day, we’re going to act,” Hansel said. “In this case, that was certain one goal there — complete disruption to the start of the day. Certainly some of the things that he was saying, he raised concerns. We didn’t know him; we didn’t know really what his intentions were.”
Fening said OPD warned Saxton against trespassing on school property but did not issue any citations. She said the department takes constitutional rights seriously and handles situations like this with care.
Protestors and religious activists are more common on Miami University property, Fening said, and the university has established public areas for free speech. Having someone at the high school was unusual, she said.
In 2016, Saxton was arrested after kicking a student at the University of Arizona. According to reporting by The Daily Wildcat, students said Saxton was “saying very vulgar things” like “gay people are destroying the country.” The Daily Wildcat reported on Saxton’s “sermons” as early as 2012, when Saxton would speak in front of the university’s administration building “almost every afternoon.”
Talawanda sent an email informing parents of the incident in the morning on Sept. 25. Administrators at other school buildings have been informed about Saxton, Hansel said, and are prepared to “stay on top of the situation” if he returns.
This article first published in the Oxford Free Press, a content partner of the Journal-News. Read it online at oxfreepress.com.
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