Sonoma State University students and faculty are speaking out following the discovery of two apparent nooses on the campus earlier this week.
For more, stream KCBS Radio now.
One noose was discovered on May 2, fashioned out of a rope attached to a barbecue that had been tossed into a campus pool. Another one was left last Thursday in an empty classroom, and university police are investigating both incidents as possible hate crimes.
Seventy-five marchers took a break from spring semester finals week on Tuesday to walk across the sprawling campus, chanting "No hate! No hate! No hate!"
Students and faculty demonstrating against the racist displays on campus did so just three days after a white gunman shot and killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York grocery store, and hours after President Joe Biden called white supremacy a "poison" running through American society.
"Two nooses in two weeks is not a coincidence, folks," one speaker said during Tuesday's demonstration.
Nooses, a painful symbol for many of this country’s history of racist lynchings and anti-Black violence, have been found on multiple Bay Area college campuses in recent years.
Earlier this month, Stanford University officials began investigating the third discovery of a noose on campus in the last four years. After an investigation last spring, the University of San Francisco expelled a student who hung a noose from a residence hall balcony.
Jason Hill, an African American student majoring in communications at Sonoma State, said the incidents are disturbing because Black students comprise only 2% of the North Bay campus' population.
"And when we see something like this ... we feel that it's targeted 'cause we're a small community here," Hill said.
Administrators denounced "vile gestures of hate and intolerance" in a campuswide email last Friday, a day after the second noose was discovered. University officials said they would "proceed with every avenue afforded to us" by school policy and "legal mandates" if the Sonoma State Police Department determines the incidents are hate crimes.
Nader Oweis, the university police chief, said a campuswide investigation is already underway.
"I'm concerned that somebody is truly hateful, and may do something more severe in the future," Oweis said, expressing consternation that the nooses were left in such public places on campus.
DOWNLOAD the Audacy App
SIGN UP and follow KCBS Radio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Related
