Racist f liers are found at school

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo president denounces acts and calls for unity.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s president denounces them.

Soon after Neal MacDougall arrived on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus Tuesday, the professor noticed university police standing outside a restroom near his office. A racial slur against African Americans had been scrawled in red marker on a stall wall.

Later, he discovered a series of racist fliers pinned up next to his door. Someone had also slashed posters he’d hung outside his office supporting students in the country illegally.

The discovery was the latest controversy on the campus — which the president said is less than 55% white — that MacDougall said shows a culture of racism at the university. Last week, photographs emerged of white fraternity members, including one in blackface, flashing gang signs.

That same weekend, minority students had hosted a diversity event for high school students.

“A lot of African American, Latino, Asian students felt they were perpetrating a fraud,” said MacDougall, who has been teaching in the university’s agribusiness department for about two decades. “They just told all these high school students this was a good place to be.”

In a statement Tuesday, university President Jeffrey Armstrong announced an indefinite suspension of all Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council fraternities and sororities.

“We are also seeking to meet with our underrepresented students to address their concerns and discuss the actions we are taking to support them and diversity and inclusion on our campus,” Armstrong wrote.

University spokesman Matt Lazier called the latest postings of hateful and racist comments “desperate acts of a few who aim to spread hate and divide our community.”

He said any actions that violate university policy or 1st Amendment rights, including threats of physical violence or expression that constitutes harassment, will result in discipline, up to expulsion and possibly even criminal charges.

“In no uncertain terms, the university abhors and denounces hateful and racist speech and actions,” Lazier said. “We must use this time to reject hate and come together ... to foster a constructive dialogue and begin the healing process.”

MacDougall posted photos to Facebook of the fliers he found outside his office. One suggested that skin tone was correlated with homicide and rape rates, along with IQ numbers.

Two of his own posters were slashed through with an X. One said, “I am an unafraid educator! As a professor/instructor I work with and for undocumented students and families at Cal Poly-SLO.”

The other was a photo of a woman in an American f lag hijab, with the message: “We the people are greater than fear.”

“That I found even more disturbing because, you know, there’s this undertone of violence to that act,” he said. He called the police but they didn’t show up, he said, and he was advised to just take the fliers down.