As has been the case every year since JBHE was founded in 1993 incidents of racial hate continue to plague the campuses of American higher education. In recent days, there have been several incidents at campuses across the United States.
The nameplates on the dormitory doors of African American students at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, were ripped off in acts of vandalism. One Black student had a racist inscription written on the message board on her dormitory room.
An African American administrator had a racist note slipped under her office door and a racial slur was scratched onto to the finish of an African American student’s car.
Three African American women who were on the basketball team alleged that the athletic director and woman’s basketball coach ridiculed them, punished them more severely than White players, and did not give them the playing time they deserved.
George “Sonny” Yellott, a 76-year-old member of the board of directors of Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon, was asked by fellow members of the board to resign.
Researchers at CollegeStats.org examined tweets on the social media platform Twitter made on or near the campuses of 1,537 colleges and universities. They found that the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences had the highest percentage of content derogatory toward Blacks.
In 2013, there were 781 hate crimes on college and university campuses that were reported to police and other law enforcement agencies. Race was the most common motivation in these hate crime incidents.
A sorority at the Baptist university in Birmingham, Alabama, produced a T-shirt promoting its spring formal dance that had a map of the state of Alabama that included images of a Black man eating watermelon and slaves picking cotton.
According to reports, a White student at Towson University in Maryland made disparaging comments to a Black employee. Racist posters were found near the entrance to the student center at Boston University and a Black student at the University of Iowa said he was beaten by three White men who used a racial slur.
After an African American student at the University of Wisconsin found a racist note that had been slid under her dormitory room door, vice provost Patrick Sims posted an emotional video on YouTube.
A 19-year-old White student from Charlotte was arrested on charges of simple assault and ethnic intimidation. According to police reports, the White student used a racial slur during the assault of a Black man on campus.
The graffiti included swastikas, a slur directed at African Americans, and the name “Trump.” Two White first-year students were arrested and charged with felony hate crime violations.
Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor, a 26-veteran of the police force, will lead the new anti-bias unit. It is believed to be one of the first such units among university police forces across the nation.
The documentary film Remixing Colorblind is the work of Sheena Howard, an assistant professor of communication at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
Photos posted on the internet showed Fairfield University students wearing baggy clothes, gold chains, and fake baby bumps while drinking 40-ounce beers at an off-campus party.
An African American student at the University of California, Davis alleges she was assaulted as she walked near her residence at UC Davis West Village in what police are calling a hate crime.
According to their campus tour guide and an official from the preparatory school, the Black students were accosted by a group of White students who used racial slurs and told then to “go back where you came from.”
Three Black women students at the University at Albany of the State University of New York System said they were confronted by racial slurs and attacked by a group of White men and women on a local bus.
After allegations that Kenneth Coopwood had been treated unfairly due to his race and a university investigation that determined he had not been discriminated against, Dr. Coopwood decided to resign.
Recently, graffiti was written on two adjoining outside walls of the building named in 1946 for segregationist-era senator and governor “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman. The spray-painted graffiti read: “Rename Tillman Hall” and “Stop Honoring Tillman.”
After the annual report was published, an alumnus of the university noticed that in a photograph of university officials a racial slur had been written in chalk on the wall behind the executives.
Kutztown University, a campus of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, announced a policy that banned Confederate flags and swastikas in students’ dormitory rooms. Days later the university backtracked on the ban.
Duke University has created a task force that will be charged with a broad review of Duke’s policies, practices and culture as they pertain to bias and hate in the Duke student experience.
A message containing a racial slur was found carved on the inside of a bathroom door in the Spence Laboratories on the campus of the University of Iowa.
In a letter to the campus community, students in the class stated that the assistant professor said, “As a White woman I just never have seen the racism…It’s not like I see ‘Nigger’ spray painted on walls.”
The attack on the Lewis & Clark campus in Portland, Oregon, came days after several racist statements threatening Black students appeared on the social media app Yik-Yak. One post stated, “I just want to hang you ignorant Black people.”
It comes as no surprise that in the aftermath of campus protests on issues dealing with race, there has been a backlash, with several race-related incidents occurring on campuses across the nation.
Black students emboldened by their success in forcing the resignation of system president Tim Wolfe, pressed on with demands. The university hired a diversity officer and announced other initiatives. But tensions remained high after threats against Black students were made on social media.
A White woman, who is a former instructor at Harris-Stowe State University, a historically Black educational institution in St. Louis, was awarded $4,850,000 from a jury in a circuit court racial discrimination case.
After a Black student went on a hunger strike and the University of Missouri football team refused to practice or play to protest a lack of inaction on several racial incidents, the system president and the Columbia campus chancellor resigned.
The women students said that a guard at the door to the fraternity house told them, “We’re only looking for White girls.”
The student newspaper at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh printed an illustration on its front page depicting s stereotypical portrayal of a Black student.
While the suit was filed by a professor of Asian Indian descent, documentation filed in the case reveals that Black and other minority faculty also believe they have been mistreated by the college.
After two racial incidents on campus, the university’s chancellor called for an end to hate and announced mandatory training for faculty, staff, and all incoming students.
The Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the Alpha Phi sorority at the University of California, Los Angeles held a “Kanye Western” party. Some White students wore baggy pants and used blackface.
An op-ed piece on the Black Lives Matter movement in the student newspaper produced protests and calls for the student government to stop funding the paper.
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