“Hateful and threatening graffiti” was discovered at College Terrace on the SUNY New Paltz campus last week, prompting campus president Darrell P. Wheeler to post a letter to the college website.
“This cannot be — this must not be — who this campus is,” wrote Wheeler in the letter dated Thursday, September 12. “We have a collective responsibility to ensure that every student at SUNY New Paltz has the right to study and learn in an environment that is free from harassment and discrimination.”
Wheeler said SUNY New Paltz University Police Department (UPD) were investigating the graffiti, and said, “Those found responsible will face severe consequences that could include removal, arrest and prosecution.”
Though he didn’t offer specifics about the content of the graffiti, Wheeler referenced issues both on and off campus around the Israel-Hamas conflict, which was a flashpoint at SUNY New Paltz at the end of May of this year when a pro-Palestinian encampment broken up by New York State Police, who arrested 132 people. Of those, 74 were enrolled students, ten were alumni, two were college employees, one was a former employee and 45 had no connection to the college. Most were charged with trespassing. The arrests were condemned by some faculty, local elected officials and members of the community.
“As we have communicated repeatedly, discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, has no place on our campus or in our community,” wrote Wheeler. “We will always condemn and take appropriate action against individuals who engage in acts of hatred, bigotry, racism, intolerance and violence. There is no place for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or hate of any kind on our campus.”
At the intersection of Sojourner Way and Southside Loop, College Terrace is a multipurpose facility used for conferences, banquets, receptions, meetings and campus entertainment.
This is not the first time hateful graffiti was found on campus at SUNY New Paltz. In a November 17, 2016 issue of college paper The Oracle, reporters Kristen Warfield and Jack O’Brien covered the response to a series of scrawled bigotry in a bathroom stall in Bouton Hall. The messages targeting Latino immigrants, Muslims and black people, and supporting President-elect Donald Trump were discovered on November 10, two days after the presidential election.
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