University Police increased patrols near UF’s Anderson Hall after racist messages were found scrawled on a classroom’s whiteboard Friday.
While UF President Kent Fuchs condemned the messages in an email to a faculty member, the act is not being treated as a hate crime, UF spokesperson Janine Sikes said.
The messages — which read “No Negroes,” “No Mexicans,” “No Muslims,” along with President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again” — were found Friday morning by a UF student and a custodian, said Ido Oren, the chair of the UF Department of Political Science.
Another message was written on several whiteboards, reading, “Month is racist! F*** N**** month,” likely in opposition to February’s Black History Month, Oren said.
The messages were found in room 034 before one of UF professor Richard Nolan’s international relations classes, Oren said.
The student who found the messages reported them to Oren around 9:30 a.m., he said. Both the custodian and the student took photos of the statements.
Oren said he emailed Fuchs to show him the photos and tell him about the incident.
Oren said he felt comfortable emailing Fuchs because he has addressed recent incidents on campus such as a man wearing a swastika armband and the noose found in Weimer Hall in January.
In the email, provided by Oren, Fuchs stated he hopes whoever wrote the messages is found.
“This is horrific!” Fuchs wrote, according to the email. “I will ask our staff to investigate and hopefully apprehend and prosecute.”
The incident comes three months after Trump won the presidential election on a campaign based, in part, on deporting illegal immigrants, and a month after he issued an executive order banning travel from seven Middle Eastern countries.
Oren said he believes racist people in the past might have been more hesitant to make these types of statements.
“Now in the current political atmosphere, they feel more empowered,” he said.
UF issued a statement Friday saying symbols and statements of hate disparaging others go against the university’s mission.
“We value many backgrounds represented on our campus, and together, we can make the University of Florida a more supportive and caring place,” the statement read.
Sikes said Fuchs contacted UF Student Affairs and UPD to ask them to investigate the incident.
In addition to the investigation, police increased patrols near Anderson Hall and started checking to make sure the buildings’ doors and classrooms are locked at night, she said.
Sikes said the incident is not being treated as vandalism.
“It’s not vandalism,” she said. “It’s a whiteboard, so it’s a little different.”
Sikes wrote in an email that as of 5 p.m. Sunday, police haven’t found proof of a crime. If a student wrote the words, the person would be referred to Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution. If it was an employee, the person would be referred to Human Resources.
If someone not affiliated with UF was responsible, UPD would ban them from campus, she said.
Oren forwarded his emails with Fuchs to all faculty in the department and about 100 graduate students Friday morning, he said.
Katy Burnett, a UF political science graduate student, said she was outraged when she received Oren’s email.
“I strongly believe that anyone who would do this needs to be expelled immediately,” the 34-year-old said.
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