New England Colleges Try A Not-So-Quick Fix To Stop Rash Of Hate Crimes
University of Vermont students walked out of class in February 2018, demanding the school do more to address racial justice and inequity on the Burlington campus. Photo by Liam Elder-Connors for VPR
It seems every few weeks there is a hate crime reported on a college campus in New England. The groups that keep track of these kinds of incidents say there is, in fact, a marked increase in the number of racist slurs found scrawled on campus walls and an increase in white supremacist group activity.
The University of Vermont was one of three colleges last month in Burlington that reported finding posters on campus defaced with white nationalist graffiti. One read, “White Privelaged [sic] And Proud of It.”
At the end of February, hundreds of University of Vermont students occupied a main building on campus demanding, not for the first time, the school do more to address issues of racial justice on campus.