Photo courtesy of Osvaldo Gutierrez/The DiamondbackUniversity of Maryland Police Department officers are investigating a hate bias incident involving white nationalist posters that were spotted on campus.
A professor and his wife found two posters on Monday glued to a wall on a chemistry building, and others discovered more posters at an engineering building, in a courtyard, and on a dumpster outside of an agricultural and natural sciences building, according to the university’s student newspaper, The Diamondback.
One of the posters read: “A notice to all White Americans: it is your civic duty to report any and all illegal aliens to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are criminals. America is a white nation.”
According to The Diamondback, two of the posters referenced the white nationalist youth group Vanguard America. Their homepage currently declares that America is under attack, and white Americans’ religion, traditions, and identify “are dragged through the mud by the globalist establishment while millions of nonwhites flood our nation every year. If current trends continue, White Americans will be a minority by 2044. It’s time to take a stand.”
Similar posters were also reported at Georgetown University on Saturday and George Washington University on Sunday, according to The Washington Post. A Vanguard America spokesperson said in an email to The Post that the group hopes to “raise awareness amongst college students regarding the problems facing the world today, and to advocate for a National Socialist solution to these problems.”
The Anti-Defamation League has identified 107 incidents of white supremacist flyers on college campuses across the country since the school year began last fall, with a surge of activity since January, when 65 of the incidents occurred.
UMD President Wallace Loh responded to all of the incidents in a statement released Tuesday saying that the posters “contain detestable language that is an affront to who we are, and what we stand for, as the State’s flagship university. As a community, we stand for excellence, diversity, and inclusion. We stand against all forms of ignorance and hate.”
Loh added that campus police are investigating the matter as a hate bias. UMPD spokeswoman Sgt. Rosanne Hoaas told The Diamondback that although “the words on the fliers are protected free speech, you could still see there’s a bias in there.”
UMPD officers are also investigating a hate bias incident involving white nationalist posters that were spotted on campus in December.
