Many DePauw University students have reported feeling concerned after a racist slur was found written inside one of its dormitories earlier this week.
According to CBS4 report, the racist slur was written with red ink inside a bathroom stall within the university’s Hogate Hall.
The incident comes months after a racist and anti-Semitic threat was found written in a restroom at The Inn at DePauw, prompting students to protest and seek answers from the administration.
“I mean I feel unsafe,” Kaleb Anderson, president of the Association of African-American Students told CBS4. “I don’t know if the person sitting in class with me is the person who wrote this. I don’t know if the person walking by in the cafeteria wrote this. It’s terrifying.”
Meanwhile, the university has said that incidents like this one are difficult to investigate since there are no cameras in bathrooms.
“The difficulty is, really, with no cameras in the bathroom, it becomes a laboratory for things like this to happen. I understand the frustration. I mean I’m frustrated. Believe me, I would like nothing more than to stand in front of your camera and say we figured out who did this,” university spokesman Ken Owen told CBS4.
“I hope they understand the University is really serious about this. We committed a lot of time in the spring and the summer looking into this, working with State Police and other agencies. It’s frustrating,” Owen added.
Over the last few months, racist incidents on college campuses across the country have surged. Last week, two University of Oklahoma students made a video wearing blackface and uttering racist slurs. Last month, a Bridgewater State University student sent a racist message to another student on Tinder.