[P]osters reading “It’s okay to be white” that are part of a national white supremacist campaign were placed on the University of Vermont and Champlain College campuses in Burlington over the weekend.
Last November, posters with the same message were displayed at UVM. Student-led demonstrations called attention to racial justice issues at the university last year, and UVM’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution over the weekend to remove former UVM President Guy Bailey’s name from the school’s library because of his involvement in the racist eugenics movement.
UVM removed the posters, citing its posting policy.
“To the extent that the signs are intended to promote a white nationalist ideology, as news reports have suggested, we condemn the activity in the strongest possible terms, as it is completely antithetical to our core University values,” the university said in a statement.
UVM was alerted about the posters on Sunday afternoon and had them removed shortly thereafter, university spokesman Jeff Wakefield said. Around six were found on the southern part of campus near the athletic complex and Redstone campus areas.
“It’s OK to be White” posters were placed at colleges and high schools across the country last year as part of a white supremacist recruitment campaign.
Champlain College received a report Saturday morning that a poster with the words “It’s okay to be white” was found attached to a statue on campus, college spokesperson Stephanie Kloss said. The sign was removed later that morning and the college is continuing to investigate.
Champlain College President Donald Laackman sent an email to the college community informing them of the incident on Sunday afternoon. The college organized a community gathering to discuss the incident and other recent events, such as Saturday’s fatal mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Kloss said.
In 2016, the theft of a Black Lives Matter flag from a UVM campus flagpole made headlines. And last year, signs reading “innocent lives matter, not guilty ones” and “white privelaged [sic] and proud of it” were posted at UVM in February led to the campus protests.
The Burlington Police Department found that the February signs came from an out-of-state group and a Vermont resident from elsewhere in the state. While the department declined to take legal action because posting the fliers was not considered criminal behavior, the individuals were attempting to “cause strife, disruption and mistrust on local college campuses by expressing hostile and troubling messages in their public spaces.”
