SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A group of athletes from Dakota Wesleyan University is challenging all the other male athletes in the Great Plains Athletic Conference to take a public stand against domestic violence. The Sioux City Journal reports the pledge idea began with a small group of students and a social justice class Luke Bamberg took.

Bamberg and four classmates decided to ask Dakota Wesleyan athletes to take the pledge. But the idea took off once Great Plains Athletic Conference Commissioner Corey Westra heard about it. So now the group is challenging the more than 2,500 male athletes at the conference’s 11 universities in South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa.

Bamberg acknowledges that signing a pledge may not make a huge difference, but he says it’s better than doing nothing.