AMHERST (WBEN) - On Friday, Governor Cuomo prompted the New York State Police Hate Crimes Task Force to assist University at Buffalo Police in investigating hate speech that was written in a bathroom stall in Knox Hall.
"There were two swastikas, a homophobic slur and the usage of the N-word all written in red marker," said Brenton Blanchet, who serves as the editor in chief for the campus newspaper, The Spectrum.
Blanchet helped uncover the story, as he was first notified of the graffiti by a fellow staff member at The Spectrum.
"In New York, there is no place for hate," said Cuomo in a written statement. "We will continue to rise up and condemn every cowardly act, anywhere it appears that targets and threatens people because of their race, religion or sexual orientation."
Dear University Community,
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"I've seen things written on bathroom stalls before; it's not really completely bizarre, but at least the magnitude of what I saw in that bathroom stall, at least the scattering of the different slurs and what-have-you, I've never seen that many done, and it was clearly the same person who did all of them," said Blanchet.
While the messages were clearly disturbing, Blanchet noted that the response from UB's administration, and the speed at which they provided it, is in stark contrast to the issues currently seen at Syracuse University.
"UB was very responsive, and I think seeing what's going on in Syracuse, you can see the parallels..." he began. "I appreciate their transparency, their will to help us get stories like this out, which I think are very important regardless of if it's something that's in a positive or negative light. It's important that students know that, as much as I hope they don't, these views do exist on a campus, and we have to make sure that people are aware of them."
Marc Rummenie is the program director for the National Federation for Just Communities of Western New York, which is an agency that aims to bring people together through consciously creating community. Through outreach programs and education, they work to "overcome issues of bias, bigotry and racism" to create a more inclusive community.
Rummenie opted not to assign blame to any one factor in the rise of open displays of bigotry and racism, but he says the increase in the number of incidents is undeniable.
"There has been an unprecedented, undoubted and verified rise in both hate crimes - FBI statistics prove that," he said. "They also prove that white nationalism as a movement is really feeling emboldened and taking off in America as this time."
He stressed that a vast majority of the public does not harbor these hateful beliefs, but he also noted that an isolated incident from one person shouldn't be written off as an insignificant event.
"Any time there is an incident of hatred, of open displays of this type, it's always important to speak out, to do investigation, to find out what's at the cause, but it's also important to come together and heal," said Rummenie. "There are far more people who don't align themselves with those types of hateful images and messages, and it's important that we stand together and say, 'Not here.'"