A liberal arts college in Minnesota canceled classes Monday after students planned to boycott, continuing their weekend protests against hate speech on campus.
Hundreds of students at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., staged a peaceful protest Saturday evening inside a student union building after racist expressions against students.
The latest of those 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 – – – – 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,” according to the Northfield News.
Some of the students protested through the night Saturday, sharing their own on-campus experiences with racism and chanting: “This ends now.” The students marched to the college chapel Sunday morning and stood in silent protest during a service.
Students were expected to boycott classes Monday after two days of demonstrations. But St. Olaf spokeswoman Kari VanDerVeen said classes would not be held “so that we may have time for faculty, students, and staff to continue the discussions about racism and diversity on our campus.”
“It’s been something that’s been going on all year,” Samantha Wells, who said she found the note, told fellow students during the weekend demonstrations, according to the Northfield News. “We’ve done so much digging and this stuff has happened for decades. There’s one thing that happens and it stops and then it happens again and then it kind of stops. I think the big message is we shouldn’t let this happen again. The administration needs to do something that stops it indefinitely.”
Wells was not immediately available for comment.
VanDerVeen said school leaders were planning to meet with students Monday to discuss their concerns.
“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.
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.
School officials called it “deeply troubling” that some racist messages were being sent directly to specific students and said the administration is working to find those responsible for the “hate-filled acts.”
In an April 21 email to students, St. Olaf president David R. Anderson compared the recent incidents to a form of terrorism.
“I am as angry and frustrated as you are at the repeated violations of our values and community norms by someone who defaces the campus with scrawled racial epithets,” Anderson wrote. “I would love nothing more than to discover who is responsible for these acts and to remove that person from our community.”
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.
The Northfield News reported that a student discovered a similar note on his car last week.
Then, the outlet reported, another student found a note in her backpack that read, “Go back to Africa.”
Students are now calling on St. Olaf administration to put an end to it.
Officials at the college said they appreciate those who are “advocating for meaningful action” and are listening to their concerns.
“The students in Buntrock Commons last night shared their fear, anger, and frustration,” VanDerVeen, the spokeswoman for St. Olaf, said in the statement. “These recent acts of racism have opened painful – and important – discussions about how we can do better as a community in addressing the broader issue of racial discrimination.”
