Signs referencing a known white supremacist group were placed overnight on campus, according to an email from the Diversity Action Response Team that was sent to the St. Thomas community Monday afternoon.
“Hate Has No Place Here!” DART stated in the email’s subject line.
“We understand that these acts are hurtful and are intended to instill fear and division,” DART wrote, adding that the signs have been removed and that Public Safety is working with St. Paul Police to investigate.
According to St. Paul Police, a man walked on to campus at around 3 a.m. Monday and placed “about two dozen stickers on university property as well as stop signs, no-parking signs and light poles” along Cleveland, Summit and Cretin avenues.
Art History adjunct professor Amy Mickelson wrote in an email to TommieMedia that she saw a sticker on a pole between O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library and O’Shaughnessy Educational Center around 8 a.m. Monday that had a URL to a “fascist hate group.”
College of Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell described the group in an email to CAS faculty and staff as “an extreme right-wing neo-nazi group.”
Stansbury-O’Donnell called the stickers “repugnant, vile, and completely contradictory to our mission and values.”
The group has been involved in racist acts in Minnesota and across the country, according to the email from DART. It’s unclear how many signs were posted on campus.
“The university condemns acts of hate and intolerance and commits to cultivating an antiracist university that upholds human dignity and fosters a culture of belonging,” DART wrote in the email.
In an email to TommieMedia, Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence Kha Yang said that the university is “committed to reviewing its processes and practices to seek equitable outcomes and monitoring its campus climate for a culture of inclusion.”
“Those who have been found to engage in acts of hate and intolerance will be strongly disciplined, as those acts are against our mission and convictions,” Yang wrote.
Anyone who sees more of these signs on campus should inform Public Safety at (651) 962-5100. Bias incidents can also be reported to the university’s Bias Reporting Hotline.
The DART email offered support services for community members in need.
St. Thomas Public Safety declined to comment about this incident.
Angeline Terry can be reached at terr2351@stthomas.edu.
Lauren Stanton, Lauren Price and Justin Amaker contributed to this report.
UPDATE 9:55 a.m. Sept. 28: This story has been updated to include information from St. Paul Police.