Whiteboard swastika vandal identified

The St. Cloud Police Department reported to SCSU and to the media last Monday morning that they identified an individual who has admitted to drawing a swastika in Stearns Hall.

Last Thursday, an incident update e-mail was sent to all students at SCSU and President Earl Potter spoke that evening at the SGA meeting regarding the identification of the individual.

Police have not released the name of the individual and will not do so until the City Attorney's Office has completed a review and determined whether to proceed with any charges.

"We will not be able to identify that person or talk about the specifics of the disciplining of what we decide to do," said President Potter to the SGA senators. "Rest assured we have the safety of the campus in mind as we execute the actions that we should take."

The police and the university are working together and conducting investigations, but they have not released information as to whether the student acted alone.

President Potter spoke directly to the SGA Thursday night to ask them to take a stand and call on majority students to stand up for what is right. President Potter answered a number of questions from the senators of SGA.

The student who committed the crime was identified through a tip from another student. The student who provided the tip acted on the notices going out to the campus expressing appreciation to the campus community to provide the information. President Potter said he wants SGA to take a leadership role to identify the ones who have committed these crimes.

"This is a learning community and one of the things that's most important to us is that having identified someone who intentionally thought to hurt others through hateful expression that we not react with hate when others are identified," said President Potter on the subject.

Currently the goal of the University is to work through a healing process that takes into consideration the needs of the folks that have been hurt, the needs of the people that have perpetrated the incidents and the needs of all of those that are at the university, and members of the community.

There are a wide range of tensions on the campus about these matters. Numerous responses have been heard at the 'speak out' forums. President Potter has also received a variety of messages from a variety of view points as well.

"I've also had angry notes from students who said 'you're fringing on my right to free speech' and I've had one angry note at least saying 'what are you doing to protect the rights of white male students,'" said President Potter.

Many have been questioning whether or not these are actual hate crimes that are being committed. President Potter said by legal definition they are in fact hate crimes. A hate crime does not require physical assault; it does require the intent to intimidate a specific individual.

"Whether it is a hate crime or a copy cat act to make fun of the administrations response it is still hurtful to the community," Said President Potter to finish discussion on the issue. "I would like student government to stand with me and the students that have been targeted and say 'we will not accept this.' It will take a leadership role to get the majority of the community to stand up for our core values for what is right."

President Potter also addressed a couple of other issues at the SGA meeting, including his appreciation for the work SGA has done on this years SCSU budget and the expansion of SCSU. "There's an exciting project developing on the Coborns property that I think you'll get a kick out of when they begin to talk about it publicly. All of this work is going to make this a University district that is a better place to live and study for our students."