Call it what it is: a hate crime

As the campus begins to recover from the past few weeks of hate and fright, it is important that the momentum and conversations continue to happen with the same passion and visibility that they have been.  

Many students still feel as strong as they did when these incidents first happened. However, this time it is not about responding to these incidents or creating spaces to process, but about Elmhurst College doing its part to ensure that this does not happen again, and that begins by calling “this” what it is—a hate crime.

What happened on this campus on October 21 and 22 were hate crimes.  

EC officials say that the FBI is currently involved with the investigation on campus, and according to the FBI, a hate crime is “a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias.”  

Any of the “hateful graffiti” are considered a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity,” by the FBI. 

The vandalism that occurred in a Niebuhr Hall bathroom included racist and homophobic slurs, targeting people from those groups. Despite this, EC has continued to use language such as “vandalism” or “hateful graffiti” 

This refusal or inability to name hate represents a larger issue of EC not taking a stance. To not name hate as hate, to paint what happened as anything other than a hate crime is to take a passive stance when the campus needs the opposite more than ever. 

As long as EC beats around the bush, the campus will be incapable of moving forward.

This is a wake up call for EC to call it what it is—a hate crime. Even if it was a “joke” or even if there was no racist intent, there is no way around it. 

This was a hate crime. 

Everyone does not belong here. Bigots and cowards who hide behind permanent markers do not belong at Elmhurst. 

When representatives of the campus sugarcoat their language, they create space for bigots and cowards to feel free to express their bigotry. 

It is time that our administration recognizes that and give those students affected what they need to heal, and to work to make this hate does not belong here. 

This is not about vandalism, this is not about graffiti, and it is not even just about the hate crimes themselves. It is about the fact that racists felt empowered to express their racism at the expense of members of our community, and the institution did not even call it what it was. 

This is unacceptable, and until the language of EC accurately represents the violent and criminal nature of what has happened, hate will always have a home here.