Interview with Armani Burton on the WOBN 97.5 bulletin board defacement, earlier this semester.
On Wednesday, March 13th, around 6 p.m. a student reported to OPD that a stone bench outside of the Courtright Memorial Library had been vandalized with racially motivated and antisemitic hate speech.
A part of the bench was also chipped and broken off and according to an email sent out from Otterbein, OPD is investigating the incident.
Greyson Thagard, the student who reported the crime says, “I’m really disappointed in the campus to be quite honest. I passed it at 6 p.m. and noticed it immediately. It does not seem like something that could be done in broad daylight, but if it was done in broad daylight, that’s even more disappointing.”
Thagard says that OPD was quick to respond to the situation and within five to 10 minutes they were outside the library handling it.
This is not the first incident like this from this semester. Back in February, a bulletin board in the Arts and Communications building was also defaced by scratching out students of color’s faces.
“To me it’s obviously unfortunate that these things are happening on campus, however if the only two incidents happened right after the other, then that leads me to believe it is a smaller sect of campus which is a win-lose situation,” says Thagard.
Hate crimes in schools are currently on the rise in the U.S. with the highest percentage of these crimes being targeted towards black people. According to recent studies, black students are less likely to choose to go to college due to discrimination.
The case is now labeled closed and unsolved.
