Friday, March 29, 2024

Classes Cancelled Amid Protests Over Racist Notes at a Minnesota College (Watch)

Students protest hate speech at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn (Apr 30, 2017) - Instagram
Students protest hate speech at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn (Apr 30, 2017) – Instagram

*Racist messages left throughout a liberal arts college in Minnesota prompted mass protests over the weekend and led administrators to cancel classes Monday to meet with students, according to The Washington Post.

Hundreds of students at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. staged a peaceful protest Saturday evening inside a student union building following racist expressions against students. The latest came just hours before the demonstrations, when a black student reported having found a note on the windshield of her car that read: “I am so glad that you are leaving soon. One less n–ger that this school has to deal with. You have spoken up too much. You will change nothing. Shut up or I will shut you up.”

During the current school year, there have been nine reported acts of hate speech on campus — three incidents during the first semester and six during the second semester — according to the college.

Some of the students protested through the night Saturday and marched to the college chapel Sunday morning, where a silent protest took place during a service. (See below.)

St. Olaf spokeswoman Kari VanDerVeen said classes would not be held on Monday “so that we may have time for faculty, students, and staff to continue the discussions about racism and diversity on our campus.”

“The racist message a student received this weekend follows several other racist acts on campus throughout the year, including written racial epithets and a message targeted at another student,” she said in a statement. “In addition to the sharp rise in incidents, it is also deeply troubling that the perpetrators have begun directing messages to specific members of our community.

“These acts are despicable. They violate every value we hold as a community, and they have absolutely no place at St. Olaf.”

Nearly 3,000 full-time students were enrolled in St. Olaf College in fall 2016; 2,214 of the students were white and 63 were black, according to enrollment figures.

In an April 21 email to students, St. Olaf president David R. Anderson compared the recent incidents to a form of terrorism.

Anderson wrote:

I say “that person” because I am pretty sure that this is the work of one or a small number of people. (It may not even be an Ole). This person uses the same modus operandi every time this happens; even the handwriting on the notes is similar from incident to incident. This person has adopted a strategy similar to the one terrorists use: under the cover of darkness and anonymity engage in acts that frighten, dishearten, and frustrate people with a goal of unsettling the community and turning people against one another.

When this person first struck in the fall, I swiftly informed the community and unequivocally denounced the person and this person’s acts. I implored anyone in the community with information about the perpetrator to come forward, and I reinforced the values of this place. I have deliberately not repeated my announcement every time this person scrawls another racial epithet somewhere because then this person wins. I don’t want to give this person the power to evoke at will a message to the campus from the President.

Nevertheless, whenever this person acts, we announce it, we denounce it, and we assert the strength of the community over against these terrible actions. We cannot let this person win.

This is a painful and challenging matter for our community. We have an open campus, and while that is generally a very good thing it does provide opportunities for a vile coward like this person to keep on committing these acts. We can’t post a guard at every wall on campus, or blanket the campus with cameras, or invoke a curfew after dark. Instead, this ends when someone on campus — student, faculty or staff — tells us who this person is or helps us with information that enables us to identify this person.

This person’s actions don’t define us. We won’t let this person win.

 

We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!

YOU MAY LIKE

SEARCH

- Advertisement -

TRENDING