Who Posted Racist 'America Is a White Nation' Flyers? The Diversity Council
At Gustavus Adolphus College, racist posters were intended to start a dialogue about race.
Posters bearing the messages "America is a white nation" and "it is your civic duty to report any and all illegal aliens" have appeared at several campuses across the country in recent weeks—including George Washington University and the University of Maryland.
Are these racist screeds the handiwork of white supremacists? Perhaps. But not at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, where these exact same signs appeared all over campus.
This time, at least, the campus Diversity Leadership Team was responsible.
According to Campus Reform:
In response to the outrage over the flyers, the Diversity Leadership Council published a statement the night the posters surfaced admitting that members of the organization had "posted these signs" in "an effort to help educate [their] peers and campus community about issues of bias, and the importance of being an active bystander.
"We want to help put an end to bias-related incidents that happened on our campus, social media, and in our communities by forcing individuals to have dialogues about forms of hate and bias," the statement continues. "We hope that members of the campus community will reflect on today's events and join us in ensuring that no one student or group of students are ever a victim of this form of discrimination."
Needless to say, students were outraged.
"Sometimes I walk around crowded theaters yelling 'fire!'" said one person in an online comment. "I do it because I want to create awareness; thus no punishment is warranted."
Of course, posting an offensive flyer is not like shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater. Hate speech is free speech, and if student social justice activists want to post obnoxious flyers—for whatever reason—they should be free to do so, as long as they respect campus rules about flyering.
Same goes for the people behind the posters at GWU and Maryland. Officials at Maryland said they were investigating the incident, but there's nothing to investigate. It's a stupid and obnoxious stunt that should be ignored—no matter if the perpetrator is a leftist student, an alt-right troll, or just some prankster.