|
Vandals strike Hamline University with anti-gay graffiti
SAINT PAUL, Minn. -- Hamline University crews Thursday morning finished cleaning anti-gay graffiti from several buildings around campus. The vandalism was first discovered Wednesday morning as student began to arrive on campus. Hamline spokesperson JacQui Getty said crews worked quickly to remove the graffiti, which included the word "homo" and explicit images of male genitalia. "It seemed to be anti-gay in nature," Getty told KARE. The painters struck in several locations, but the most visible art was on the admissions building on the southwest corner of Snelling Avenue and Hewitt Avenue. School president Linda Hanson notified the 4,900 students with a letter pledging that Hamline will "pursue every avenue to discover the perpetrators of this vandalism." It coincides with the annual Rainbow Week on Hamline, led by the student GLBT group known as Spectrum. A Spectrum member, Miles Bard, told KARE that it was clearly offensive but not necessarily aimed at Hamline's GLBT students. "It shows the level those people are thinking at," Bard said. The group was pleased that the dean of students left a meeting and met with the group to assure them the university's response would be swift. "He came out of a budget meeting and he spent a half an hour explaining what happened, what they were going to do," Bard said, "It was really great, and that's what really matters to us." Bard was at the State Capitol Wednesday with other Spectrum members taking part in the Just Fair gay rights rally. In her message to students and staff Hanson wrote, "These are acts of vandalism, intended to be hurtful and to undermine our values as an inclusive and honorable community." Getty told KARE the offending words were removed before the general public was notified in order to prevent those words from creating additional harm by being repeated. The university is asking anyone with information about the vandals to call Shirleen Hoffman, the director of Safety and Security at Hamline, at 651-523-2100.
|
 MORE HEADLINES |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
