A tense day on campus over a racial slur written on the Upper Quad culminated Thursday evening when St. Thomas Public Safety announced it had identified three students it said were responsible.

Public Safety sent out a text on the USTALERT system at 6:27 p.m. stating that three students were identified after a tip from a student. No other information was available.

Late Wednesday night, sophomore Wako Wako came across a racial slur written on pavement.

Wako said he left the library around 10:20 p.m. to go back to a friend’s dorm when he found letters on the sidewalk that looked diluted by water. After taking a second look, he made out the letters to be the N-word.

“I honestly couldn’t believe it when I first saw it, maybe just thinking my eyes were just deceiving me,” Wako said. “It’s a racist, derogatory word.”

Undergraduate Student Government released a statement Thursday morning, pledging “solidarity with our fellow classmates in the Black Empowerment Student Alliance and with all students, faculty and staff impacted.”

The USG statement emphasized the support resources available on campus such as Student Diversity and Inclusion Services and Counseling and Psychological Services.

The Anti-Racism Coalition has planned a rally on the quad for noon Friday.

St. Thomas students gathered over convo hour on Thursday to discuss the week’s events. Junior Jordan Pinnix said incidents like this one on campus are not simply a result of the presidential election.

“Everything negative that’s come from the results of the election, everything over the last year and half, two years, including this week, is not surprising at all. And that’s the worst part,” Pinnix said. “It’s not anything new. It’s just emphasized. It’s exemplified.”

He said that the students inside the packed meeting on Thursday felt a range of emotions in response to the racial slur and the election of Donald Trump.

“There’s a whole spectrum of reactions, but none of them are positive,” Pinnix said. “None of them are very hopeful. None of them are very optimistic. It’s a lot of reaction for the negative things that are happening.”

Artika Tyner, associate vice president for diversity and inclusion, said that as an institution of higher education, St. Thomas can learn from the incident.

“My initial impression was that we have an opportunity to grow stronger together as a community,” Tyner said. “I would say [we have] opportunities to be able to discuss issues, opportunities to build bridges opportunities to explore … the historical context of racial slurs.”

Sophomore Mosope Ani, who also attended the Thursday meeting, expressed the futility of meetings like this one.

“Everyone’s just tired,” Ani said. “I feel like we’re all at the point where we’re all just tired of having to meet in rooms like this and talk about the same things over and over again, and to have to talk about things that everyone should be aware of.

“It’s gotten to a point where you just can’t talk about it anymore, you actually have to start doing things.”

Pinnix echoed this sentiment, criticizing the all-school emails St. Thomas administrators send without any further racism-related action.

President Julie Sullivan and Provost Richard Plumb condemned the incident in an email statement sent to the campus community Thursday morning.

“The university will act on this incident, holding people responsible for their actions and behavior,” the statement read. “We continue to work towards a safe and inclusive campus for all members of our community.”

Senior Mayzer Muhammad, president of USG, said, “It’s all about taking action now.”

“One route we can definitely take is to challenge other people and have discussions that are critical discussions — obviously in a respectful manner — but to really, really challenge one another,” Muhammad said. “And if you hear something [racist] being said, make sure you call that person out.”

Tyner emphasized that the action students desire is already underway, saying university faculty and the Diversity Action Response Team are working to strengthen the “multicultural learning community” at the university after this incident.

Pinnix said he thinks that engaging in dialogue is “the only thing that’s really going to help us.”

“Really the only solution that we’ve come up with … is to bring people into the conversation, try to get people to understand where we’re coming from,” Pinnix said. “But the fact that we haven’t made any progress towards that is what’s frustrating a lot of people.”