During my freshman year of college, there was a huge group of people in the library quad causing a commotion.

They had a sign with a long list of sins that they claimed us as college students would regret once we died. I briefly joined my peers in scoffing at the fact that these people were on our campus trying to tell us how to live our lives.

My sophomore year comes around, and yet again, the same group of people were on our campus again, telling women that they’re “going to hell” for wearing leggings or shorts or crop tops.

Yet again, I briefly stopped to listen again. A lot of the things that Sister Cindy said were religiously motivated.

Almost like clockwork, Sister Cindy and her crew were back on Eastern’s campus recently ready to spread more of their word.

For me, the past two years that Sister Cindy has been on this campus, I can’t help but wonder if it’s completely okay for a group so hellbent on their religious views to come to a college campus and verbally demean students.

While working at the office of admissions here on campus a while ago, I was giving a tour to a very small group, one student and her father. We were asked a total of four times during our tour to take a pocket sized book that just so happened to be a copy of the New Testament.

I do not condone the mockery or disrespect when it comes to religious or even political views, but it gets very challenging for some people to not want to generalize and entire group of people when one one person is doing wrong.

Racists use the improper actions of one person of color to justify hating the entire race, right? But- it is not okay to do so.

I find that even aside from the religion or race argument, we tend to generalize groups of people every single day. It’s not right to stereotype any group of people. It is better to get to know everyone for who they are and make those judgements based off of what you know.

Kyla Moton is a junior English creative writing major. She can be reached at klmoton@eiu.edu or 217-581-2812.