ADL: White Supremacist Incidents Increased by 258 Percent on US College Campuses Last Year
by Algemeiner Staff
White supremacists spread their propaganda on US college campuses with increased frequency last year, newly-released data gathered by a leading civil rights organization shows.
The Anti-Defamation League recorded 147 incidents in which white supremacists targeted students with posters, fliers, stickers, and banners during the 2017 fall semester.
The figure represents a 258 percent increase over the 2016 fall semester, when 41 such incidents took place, the group said on Tuesday.
The propaganda may include calls to “save the white race,” and often demonizes minorities including Jews, Blacks, Muslims, immigrants, and the LGBT community.
Since September 2016, the ADL documented 346 incidents of white supremacist propagandist activity on 216 college and university campuses. Fifteen incidents have already occurred in 2018.
Campuses in Texas and California were most severely impacted, experiencing 61 and 43 incidents respectively in 2017.
Those states are home to the “most concentrated and active membership” for the white supremacist organizations Identity Evropa and Patriot Front, the ADL explained.
These groups “see campuses as a fertile recruiting ground,” stated ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
“While campuses must respect and protect free speech, administrators must also address the need to counter hate groups’ messages and show these bigoted beliefs belong in the darkest shadows,” Greenblatt said. “There is a moral obligation to respond clearly and forcefully to constitutionally protected hate speech.”