Florida Gulf Coast University students protested against the university’s response to a racist drawing found on campus Thursday.
Ashakeen Sterling, president of the university’s Black Student Alliance, organized the 250 student rally, reports News-Press.com.
At the protest, students blasted the college’s decision not to tell students about the drawing and demanded the university police investigate the matter. They expressed anger over learning about the drawing through the news and not from the university itself.
“I think from the university standpoint and student standpoint we feel like the university violated our trust in always telling us, ‘Hey, we are here. We stand with you.’ And then when something happens they try to sweep it under the rug,” student Shanee Kasupal declared.
Some of the students gathered wore Black Lives Matter t-shirts and carried signs reading “This campus does not tolerate racism and “All lives can’t matter until #blacklivesmatter.”
The drawing in question occurred two weeks ago; it featured the phrase “KILL (N-word)” and a stick figure swinging from a tree.
Wilson G. Bradshaw, the university’s black president, said while he would not tolerate racism on campus, he did not feel the drawing was an immediate threat to the campus.
“We don’t know if it was a faculty member, a staff member, a student or someone from off campus,” Bradshaw said. “But that’s not important to me. What’s important to me is that it happened in our house, and we don’t have room in our house to tolerate this.”
Many racist incidents that occurred on college campuses have turned out to be hoaxes in the past. A supposed “noose” at University of Delaware was actually the remnants of a paper lantern, and an anonymous promise to “kill all black people” at Saginaw Valley State University ended up sourcing back to a black student. (RELATED:The Daily Caller Presents: The Biggest, Dumbest Race Hoaxes And Fake Hate Crimes On Campus in 2015)
A gay man claimed that the University of North Dakota’s Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity refused to let him into their party, and choked him because he was gay in August 2015. Investigators revealed later on that the 150 witnesses they interviewed could not corroborate the man’s story. Investigators also asked the county prosecutor to file criminal charges against the man for providing the police with false information.
Send tips to amber@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.