Oberlin Cancels Classes Today After Racist and Anti-Gay Incidents

Very disturbing. Oberlin College canceled all classes today after a month-long series of "racial, anti-Semitic and homophobic incidents" culminated in the report of one person seen on campus today wearing a Ku Klux Klan-type hood. The sighting was near a "designated safe space" for black students, reports Raw Story.

The individual, clad in a robe and hood reminiscent of the racist group was spotted near the Afrikan Heritage House, a residential building described on the school website as "a designated safe space for residents and students of the African Diaspora."

Oberlin president Marvin Krislov and other administrators sent a campus-wide email Monday morning announcing that classes were canceled and encouraging students to attend a series of events including a teach-in at the building led by the school’s Africana Studies Department and a “demonstration of solidarity” gathering.

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer adds:

The student newspaper, the Oberlin Review, reports at least six incidents of vandalism last month involving hate speech. Incidents included replacing the word "black" with a racial slur on Black History Month posters, and drawings of swastikas. "Whites only" also was written above a water fountain in one building. A person reporting a robbery on Feb. 17 said the attacker used a racial slur before knocking the victim to the ground.

Oberlin College was founded in 1833. The highly selective liberal arts college has the distinction of being the first American institution of higher learning to Black students in 1825 and women two years later.

Thanks RYAN CANTY and MIKE ROGERS!

Comments

[Ron]

WOW! I'm speechless......as a BLACK, OPENLY GAY Oberlin College alum I am shocked. Oberlin was one of the most tolerant and accepting places I have ever encountered. Not only were there spaces like Afrikan Heritage House but Oberlin also offered access to one of the largest African American Studies departments in the country, not to mention its abolitionist history of being a stop on the underground railroad and one of the first institutions to admit african americans............I don't know what to say.......I do have a theory as to the shift in campus culture. Institutions like Oberlin (small, private, elite liberal arts schools) have large endowments and because of the students it traditionally accepts they are held to a standard of integrity when it comes to investment (like when I was attending we wanted them to divest from Israel and before me black students fought for divestment from South Africa during apartheid)these social choices while admirable come at a cost. Oberlin has gone a step further and cut ties with companies like Coca-Cola because of pressure from the student body. That being said, I think Oberlin has started to recruit a richer, less socially conscious student One who can pay full tuition and won't care how they spend the money. Just a theory but I just pray it gets better because I owe so much of who I am as a person to the culture that was created before me on the campus of Oberlin College.

[Johnny T]

Jeez - shouldn't the entire campus of a 'liberal arts school' be a safe space for African-American students?

[Chitown Kev]

Knowing Oberlin's reputation, I actually doubt that an Oberlin student did this.