Two weeks ago, onlookers watched a student and a preacher viciously shout Bible verses at one another.
The conflict has become an Internet sensation after a video of it was posted to YouTube, now with almost 20,000 views.
The student in the videos, Braxton Tanner, sophomore in zoology, has been contacted by YouTube for advertising rights.
The video, titled "The Gay Preacher Draws Huge Crowd At Auburn University" was even featured on Daniel Tosh's Tosh.0 blog.
While the preachers are anything but new to campus, the incident and the video that followed have raised questions about free speech on campus.
"This is a public campus," said Steven Brown, a constitutional law professor in the department of political science. "As such, it is viewed as a limited public forum.
"A public forum would be like a park, and you could say anything you want. But in a limited public forum, there would be some rules in place."
Brown said there are time, place and manner considerations when officials determine who can speak and when.
"They can say things like...you can't use loud speakers, or you can't use amplifiers," he said. "Or if you're going to have a protest, you can't have it on College Street, you've got to have it down on a street west of town."
The time, place and manner considerations have been established in courts of law to ensure that institutions like schools and public offices can maintain their mission without disruption.
"The trick, though, is with the free speech clause, you're not supposed to be able to discriminate or regulate on the basis of the content," Brown said. "The notion is that if you allow anyone on campus, you have to allow everybody.
"If you have job recruiters, and they are talking to and accessing students, then why can't the preacher?"
Capt. Tom Stofer of the Auburn Police Department said while his officers were present at the student-preacher incident, they would only step in if a public disturbance occurred.
He said his officers could ask an individual to stop what they were doing if they were becoming disorderly.
"However, if we asked them to stop and they continued to do so, they could be arrested for disorderly conduct," Stofer said.
Brown said he believes the University does a good job of maintaining standards of free speech, and in the situation of the preachers who come to campus, it is the students engaging with them that presents the conflict.
"It'd be very easy for the University to say 'look at all these troublemakers, they're causing a scene,' but typically it's because someone's responded back to them and they've engaged in that give-and-take thing," Brown said.
Jim Wohl, University ombudsman, handles conflict between faculty and staff by sitting down with the parties and having discussions about their conflict and any potential solutions.
Because of his job requirements, Wohl is experienced in conflict resolution between disagreeing parties.
Wohl said he believes people engage in speech not because they seek information or resolution to a conflict, but because they wish to be entertained.
"It's not a distinction we think about a lot," Wohl said.
Bryant Haley, president of Young Americans for Liberty and a senior in wireless engineering, said his group engages students in civil discussion.
"You never attract attention if you stand there with a bullhorn," Haley said. "You will never be able to yell at somebody and try to make them pay attention to you, or even less, agree with you."
Brown said he believes most conflicts arise when individuals hear speech they disagree with, and that is what the First Amendment is intended to protect.
"You don't need a free speech clause for speech that you agree with," Brown said. "It's speech that's out of the mainstream, that's a little unorthodox, that's a little different or weird--that's why you need a free speech clause."
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