Obama's win prompts racial incidents at 2 Universities in Philly!

Posted on Wed, Nov. 12, 2008
2 universities probe racial incidents
By Susan Snyder
Inquirer Staff Writer

Officials at St. Joseph's and La Salle Universities are investigating two racially charged incidents of the last two weeks, one involving vandalism in a classroom and the other a fight outside an off-campus fraternity house that allegedly involved racial slurs.
At both campuses, there were concerns from students and a parent that tensions had flared over the candidacy and victory of President-elect Barack Obama.
A white student at La Salle allegedly used a racial slur to describe Obama and insult students.
The encounter occurred about a block from a fraternity house where an altercation started early Sunday morning and later erupted into violence.
La Salle has brought disciplinary charges against some students who were alleged to have attacked black students, officials said.
Anthony White, whose daughter, Kelsey, 18, a freshman at La Salle, reported being punched in the face by a white male student during the melee, called the incident "horrifying."
"It wouldn't surprise me if the election [led to] some of this behavior," said White, a loan officer from Rhode Island. "It really is a phenomena that I know black people are concerned about."
At St. Joseph's, some students also raised concerns that a drawing of a stick figure in a noose found at the McShain classroom and residence hall on Oct. 29 could be related to the election, said Cary Anderson, vice president of student life.
But he emphasized that there was no way to know because school officials had not identified the perpetrator of the graffito.
Alicia Plummer, a senior at St. Joseph's, complained in a letter to The Inquirer that the university had been slow to deal with the situation.
The graffito - which also included sexual phrases - was discovered in a classroom on the morning of Oct. 29, but was not reported to Lower Merion Township police or the student body until the next day, she wrote. University officials confirmed the delays and said the vandalism was committed between 9 p.m. on Oct. 28, when an economics class in the room ended, and 7:30 the next morning.
Plummer contended that the vandalism was indicative of a larger racial problem on St. Joseph's campus, where about 10 percent of the student body is black.
"This incident is only the needle that burst the swelling pimple of frustration surrounding the multitude of discriminatory acts that take place," she wrote.
St. Joseph's officials acknowledged that the graffito should have been taken more seriously sooner and said that reporting procedures within the public safety department would be changed in response.
"If it's hate-related, we need to know right away," Anderson said.
Officials also said they were aware of longer-standing concerns about racial tensions and had been working to improve relations.
The university will roll out a diversity plan, including curriculum changes, before the end of the semester, Anderson said.
In the meantime, mandatory diversity training will be provided to the 280 students living in McShain and eventually broadened to the rest of the student body, he said. The university held a meeting with concerned students the night after the graffito was discovered, he noted, and St. Joseph's president Timothy R. Lannon, along with members of the cabinet, met with the Black Student Union.
At La Salle, where about 17 percent of undergraduate students are black, officials are still trying to sort out what happened in a house inhabited by members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.
"What we believe we know so far, there was an altercation that began at a social gathering at an off-campus house. People have different perspectives on what happened after that," said Joseph J. Cicala, dean of students.
Cicala said the house was not an official fraternity house but was home mostly to members of Phi Gamma Delta.
He declined to give the address, but said the altercation there spilled out into the neighborhood about a block away at Chew Avenue and Wister Street. La Salle security officers and Philadelphia police responded.
City police said yesterday that details were not readily available.
Cicala would not say how many students had been brought up on disciplinary charges or what the charges were. The students will get hearings and if the charges prove true, punishment will be "severe," he said.
According to the complaint Kelsey White filed, a dispute erupted when she and three other students were leaving a party at the house about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. One of the males with her confronted students sitting on a couch who were going through the wallet of a friend, she said.
A tall, white male in a baseball cap grabbed another male student with her by the throat and shoved him.
As she tried to leave with two of the friends, a group of white males shouted racial slurs and began to follow, the complaint said.
That led to punching, kicking and hitting, and at one point 20 white males were involved, the complaint said.
White told campus police that one of the male students with her got a deep cut across his palm and cuts on his stomach and hips and had back pain. White's complaint said an eye and the right side of her face became swollen after being punched.
Calls to the national office of Phi Gamma Delta and the local chapter president were not returned yesterday.
Kelsey White did not return a call for comment, nor did two of the other students with her. The third declined to comment.