Janitors found a swastika spray-painted on the carpet of the University’s LGBTQA office in the EMU early Monday morning.
As of 7:20 p.m. Monday, campus safety officers had not submitted a police report about the incident, in which a computer and television screen were also sprayed with black paint. University President Richard Lariviere said the University intended to “prosecute” those responsible.
Members of the LGBTQA said the four-by-four-and-a-half-foot swastika was first discovered when EMU custodians entered the group’s office to clean it at about 2 a.m. Monday. They then notified the group’s leaders, who entered the office shortly before 8 a.m.
Though a police report had not been filed, LGBTQA Director Alex Esparza said officers with the Department of Public Safety collected evidence from the office three times.
University spokesperson Julie Brown said the evidence had included the two vandalized pieces of carpet cut out of the office shortly about 8:30 a.m.
Brown said there was “no sign of forced entry.”
EMU technical support administrator Mike Kraiman said the EMU had given DPS the names of those who carried keys to the office. Kraiman said the EMU would not release the names while DPS is investigating the incident.
Esparza said that three members of the LGBTQA have keys, but that he didn’t know how many EMU staff members also have them.
A media request to speak with DPS was not fulfilled.
Esparza said that he locked the office when he left it Friday night, but that it had been unlocked when custodians found the swastika.
The appearance of the swastika came amid controversy over the Pacifica Forum, a campus-based discussion group that has invited speakers who espouse pro-Nazi views. Opponents of the Forum said the appearance of the symbol reinforced their fears of racially motivated violence on campus.
“I know it’s impossible to 100-percent tie this in to the Pacifica Forum,” Esparza said in an at-times tense meeting between students and administrators Monday afternoon. “But it’s clear that the environment here is making people feel like they can do this.”
At the same meeting, Lariviere said the University had created a new policy in an attempt to keep the Pacifica Forum off campus, which University lawyers were reviewing. The University has been cautious about taking action against the group for fear that doing so might violate Forum members’ First Amendment rights and open the University to a lawsuit.
Students who have attended protests against the Pacifica Forum were critical of Lariviere’s response. Though she said she thought Lariviere was “on our side,” Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team member Devon Schlotterbeck said, “He talks about community response and responsibility, but he separates himself from the community” by not protesting against the group himself.
Pacifica Forum member Dawn Coslow condemned the act, but called its being linked to the Forum “ridiculous.”
“Any kind of hate crime is an absolutely disgraceful, despicable act, and I have sympathy for all the students in that office who have suffered this hideous act,” she said.
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