Jeff Miller/UW-Madison
UW-Madison aerial shot
UW-Madison police are investigating an act of racist vandalism that was committed earlier this week on campus, officials confirmed Wednesday.
The drawing, which was found in a men’s bathroom in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, shows a stick figure hanging from a noose in a tree with the word “nigger” written next to it. UW police spokesman Marc Lovicott says the vandalism was reported at about 7:20 p.m. on Monday and is believed to have occurred sometime between 3:30 and 7 p.m. that same day.
“This is an open investigation,” Lovicott writes in an email. “We're hoping anyone with information will come forward to share it.”
Marla Delgado-Guerrero, a UW-Madison doctoral candidate, posted a picture of the vandalism on both Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag #TheRealUW.
UW-Madison students created the hashtag earlier this week in response to an incident that occurred early Saturday morning in Sellery Hall in which an African American student was attacked by a neighbor.
On Twitter, students of color shared stories of racism and discrimination they have experienced on campus and around Madison. Many also expressed frustration with university officials, saying that more should be done to combat hate on campus.
UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam says the stories shared via the hashtag paint a “pretty bleak picture” of what students of color at UW-Madison have experienced on campus.
Monday’s act of vandalism is the fourth reported instance of racial bias on campus this semester. In January, students in Sellery Hall taped swastikas and photos of Adolf Hitler to the door of a Jewish student, and on March 10, a group of people inside Dejope Hall heckled a Ho-Chunk elder who was performing a healing ceremony.
While the recent uptick in bias incidents is alarming, Berquam says it’s clear that the university has been struggling with issues of racism and bias for years. She says she is “saddened” by Monday’s vandalism and is “disappointed that one more instance of hateful behavior has been demonstrated in our community.”
“You can sense the emotional toll that it’s taken on our students,” she says.
On Tuesday, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank posted an open letter to the campus community in response to what she describes as a “troubling string” of hate and bias incidents. In the letter, Blank condemns the behaviors and pledges that the university will investigate, punish those responsible and provide support for the victims.
“Responding to each incident is important, but the harder work is addressing campus climate systematically,” she writes. “This is work we all need to do, together.
Blank points to the university’s Diversity Framework as an example of efforts to improve inclusivity on campus but said that officials need to be doing more. In the letter, she announces several “expanded or accelerated initiatives” to address racism. These include launching a pilot program on cultural competency aimed at new students starting this fall, hiring additional student support counselors at University Health Services, improving the campus cultural center and holding a university-wide information session about reporting hate and bias incidents after spring break.
Berquam says that the initiatives outlined in Blank’s letter came from previous conversations with members of the campus community. The Associated Students of Madison this spring approved hiring additional mental health counselors over the next two fiscal years, but Blank opted to move up the hiring -- “and duly so,” Berquam says.
Adding cultural competency training for new students and improving the university’s cultural centers have also been discussed for the past several years, Berquam says, adding that many other campuses are making similar moves to combat racism.
“This is something we’re seeing nationally,” she says. “Violence has escalated nationally on a variety of fronts.”
Campus officials also want to educate students on the university’s relatively new hate and bias reporting process, which was implemented two years ago as a way to differentiate such instances from general misconduct.
“Before that, we didn’t really have a mechanism in place,” Berquam says. “I think it has highlighted on our campus these incidents in a louder way.”
Blank also asks for help forming a partnership among students, faculty and staff to share ideas and initiatives that address “cultural and behavioral change,” urging those who are interested in participating to reach out via email at chancellor@wisc.edu.
“I think that what we are coming to now is a point [at which] students of color, students from marginalized populations are saying, ‘Enough is enough,’” Berquam says. “As a campus, we’ve got to figure out how we address these things before they happen.”
