My wife is a grad student and teaches English 101 at Western Washington University and this morning she woke up to a message that classes were canceled today due to a violent racist threat having been made toward black students at the school.
From the Bellingham Herald:
In a letter to the campus community, President Bruce Shepard said campus and Bellingham police are investigating the social media posts as a hate crime.
“I need to be VERY clear here: we are not talking the merely insulting, rude, offensive commentary that trolls and various other lowlifes seem free to spew, willy nilly, although there has been plenty of that, too. No, this was hate speech,” Shepard said in the letter. “These are likely crimes in my view.”
A threat to any one of us is an attack on all of us. WWU President Bruce Shepard
Shepard said the police investigation is ongoing. If the person or persons behind the social media posts are Western students, they likely would be expelled, he said.
Though there is no general threat to campus safety, several students of color told Shepard this week they feared being on campus because of the social media posts
“A threat to any one of us is an attack on all of us,” Shepard said in the letter.
I can’t confirm this, but from what I hear, the threat was about lynching black students.
The hate speech appeared on the location-based social media app Yik Yak, where posts are anonymous, Shepard said Tuesday in an interview with The Bellingham Herald. Users post texting-length messages that appear to those in close geographic proximity. It’s a very popular app on college campuses, but it’s also been banned from some because users have posted racist messages and threats.
Because you need to be within a narrow geographic area to post items, the threats likely came from Bellingham and relatively close to campus.
Shepard said he became aware of the hate speech posts on Monday afternoon.
University spokesman Paul Cocke said the hate speech resulted from recent discussions on campus about WWU’s Viking mascot.
According to a Western Front article, the conversation about the mascot — which has represented the university since 1923 — began last summer. Those supporting a change said the Viking is too masculine, too violent and doesn’t reflect students of color. They are advocating for a more inclusive mascot.
A campus survey on the mascot is planned but no date for it has been set.
In a lengthy blog post written Sunday, Shepard said he did not see evidence of widespread concern about the Viking mascot and did not foresee Western changing it.
However, he did welcome discussion about it.
“Poised at the cusp of what I believe to be a multi-faceted turning point in public higher education as well as in the society and culture we both reflect and lead, does a Eurocentric and male mascot point to the future we wish to embrace? Or to the past we would move beyond? And, is this, then, an image all can identify with?” he wrote.
Western was due to begin its break from the Thanksgiving holiday on Wednesday. The campus remained open and operating Tuesday.
I am proud of WWU for it’s intelligent, sensitive, timely response.
I also want to give much deserved credit to the Campus Christian Fellowship who took the initiative to take a public stand against hate on behalf of their fellow students.
A group with Campus Christian Fellowship organized an impromptu demonstration Tuesday morning of about four dozen students at Red Square.
“We are out here because of the hate speech,” said Jenessa Ho, 19, a sophomore at Western. “We wanted to spread God’s love and his peace and bring his spirit on the school.”
Now that is what Jesus would do.