Many students were alarmed to find posters promoting white supremacy scattered around the Rensselaer campus on Monday morning, originally discovered on the Jonsson Engineering Center.
The posters seem to be from a group called “Evropa,” a white nationalist and fascist advocacy organization. One of the posters said “Protect your heritage,” accompanied by a picture of a Roman sculpture. Another, with the same image, stated, “Let’s become great again.”
The posters caused quite a stir amongst students and staff, many of which took to social media website Reddit to voice their opinions–with over 108 comments to date, many condemning the posters as “fascist” and calling for students to rally against the hateful message spread by the signs.
Rensselaer is not the first campus to apparently be targeted. The posters happen to be a part of a national trend targeting college campuses across the country by various hate groups in which institutions such as Purdue University, Emerson College, and the University of Michigan were also targeted.
In response to the postering, students across campus took to ripping down the posters, noting the racial underpinnings behind the signs, which were all but removed from campus by noon on Monday.
Many of the hateful posters were replaced with signs that read “Hatred ain’t free speech” and “RPI is against fascism.” Other posters also read “Protect Muslims” and “Protect Jews.”
On Tuesday at 2 pm, it was discovered that the signs had been defaced. Signs which had originally said “Genocide ain’t free speech” were drawn over en-masse with mocking messages such as “It’s free thought” or had the messages crossed out entirely.