The Brooks Quimby Debate Council is hosting a special public debate at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives on the resolution: “This House believes that Bates College should institutionalize a hate speech code.”

According to junior Vaibhav Bajpai, publicity coordinator for the Debate Council, the special debate was organized in response to several incidents on campus — most recently racist and homophobic slurs written on walls in Pettengill Hall – that prompted Bates community meetings in the Chase Hall plaza and the Bates chapel earlier this week.

To encourage fuller participation by the Bates community, the debate will be followed by a roundtable discussion with faculty, staff and students.