University of Vermont and Champlain College officials in Burlington promised students vigilance after signs linked to far-right social media platform 4chan were posted on the college campuses over the weekend.
UVM students and staff were notified on Sunday afternoon about flyers that read “It’s Okay to be White” similar to those posted on campus around the same time last year in November. University spokesman Jeff Wakefield told VT Digger that six of the postings were discovered on the southern part of the campus areas near the athletics complex.
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Champlain College received an alert on Saturday morning that the offensive posters were found taped to a statue on their campus, according to the college’s spokesperson Stephanie Kloss. The school organized a community meeting on Sunday and discussed the incident, which college officials are still investigating.
The Washington Post reported in November 2017 that “It’s okay to be white” flyers began appearing on college and high school campuses in locales across the nation just weeks after a call for those messages to be posted went out on 4chan last fall.
UVM removed the signs it said were “intended to promote a white nationalist ideology.” Officials said the posters violated their posting policy and condemned the “activity in the strongest possible terms.”
Similar flyers were posted in UVM’s Mosaic Center for Students of Color in February that read “innocent lives matter, not guilty ones” and “white privelaged and proud of it.” The signs sparked outrage among students and led to campus protests.
The Burlington Police Department and FBI concluded that the person or people responsible for the white supremacists postings were from a group that “placed the posters were from out of state and had no affiliation with Burlington or UVM.”
UVM school officials stated on Monday that they’re working with authorities to open a new investigation.
