Three Vermont Colleges Hit by ‘White Identity’ Hate Speech
Students and staff at the University of Vermont (UVM), St. Michael’s College and Champlain College have all reported finding stickers, cards and posters reading “embrace white identity today,” among other phrases. The schools have branded the action as racism and hate speech and condemned the actions.
According to a report from Vermont Public Radio:
Enrique Corredera, executive director of communications at UVM, says that last week, two note cards were left on the Mosaic Center for Students of Color display case in the Davis Center Tunnel.
The cards said “’White Privelaged [sic] And Proud of It’ and ‘Innocent Lives Matter Not Guilty Ones,’ according on an email from the UVM Bias Response Team.
Corredera said that the signs on UVM’s campus were in violations of the university’s posting policy.
The materials that turned up at St. Michael’s and Champlain contained similar messages and were removed as soon as they were discovered.
John Micheals, president of St. Micheal’s College, told The Defender student newspaper that, “While the College supports free speech, it cannot and will not tolerate hate speech, even when thinly veiled. Let us be clear: This was not done in some benign way to suggest equality for all is important. According to news reports, this began with a suggestion in an online chat space to seed social disruption and draw allies to white nationalist and alt-right causes.”
The incidents are the latest in a string of racially-motivated at UVM, where a school employee remains on a hunger strike and a student group has called for resignation of the school president.
University of Vermont students filled the Waterman Building on Tuesday afternoon to demand that school administrators take action after several racist incidents https://t.co/sfm0tIzwSJ #BTV pic.twitter.com/PePmH2hbkb
— Seven Days (@sevendaysvt) February 21, 2018
