On Move-In Day, White Nationalist Material Found Posted On SDSU Campus

Speaker 1: 00:00 Move in day on the San Diego State University campus is an exciting time as thousands of students get their first good look at their new school. But campus officials have revealed that new students this week could also have gotten a look at some flyers and stickers posted by white nationalist hate groups. The material which was not described was removed Thursday morning by campus security, but the appearance of the flyers seems to confirm what a new report has documented and that is a growing trend of propaganda and recruitment by white racist groups targeting college campuses. Joining me by Skype is Jessica Reeves, editorial director with the anti-defamation League's center on extremism. And Jessica, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me. What do you make of this incident at SDSU? Speaker 2: 00:48 Fortunately, this is totally unsurprising. I'm to those of us who track white supremacist activity on campus. Center on extremism at ADL has tracked just a skyrocketing number of, uh, extremist propaganda incidents at campuses around the country. We saw a massive increase during 2017, 18 academic year and then again 2018, 20, 19 school year. Another increase. And, uh, we see no reason to believe that this semester will be any different. Speaker 1: 01:19 Now, according to your research, this material isn't being spread by students, but by outside groups. What outside groups, Speaker 2: 01:26 there are a number of groups that are particularly active in this realm. One of them is Patriot front. Another one is identity Europa, which has recently rebranded itself as the American identity movement or aim. These are the two groups that we see the most frequent flyering incidents from. And um, you know, it's important to note that a lot of these groups are using not what you would consider traditional sort of racist or white supremacist talking points or um, images in their propaganda. They are using sort of much more refined or coded language. So it might not be immediately obvious that you're looking at white supremacist propaganda, but in fact you are, they will refer frequently to the superiority of western Europe or to defending America. And what they're implying of course, is that white European history and white European culture is superior to other cultures. Speaker 1: 02:23 And why are they targeting college campuses? Speaker 2: 02:26 So college campuses represent a great sort of recruiting ground for these groups. If you think back to your own college experience, you know, when we start college we're very open to new ideas or perhaps just figuring out who we are, what we believe a way from the influence of our parents. We are extremely susceptible to group think in a lot of ways and it's just, it's a very susceptible, very open minded population. Speaker 1: 02:55 Now you just told us that the ADL has documented incidents of white supremacist fliers on college campuses, the number of which is increasing, but you also found it's increasing even more off campus, isn't it? Speaker 2: 03:10 It is, yes. And we are sort of interested in the trends here beyond, um, obviously it's incredibly upsetting for college students and administrators and staff to see this kind of material on their campuses. But we know that a lot of these groups are now turning to outside opportunities to outside, uh, populations and they're moving more into town centers that are moving more into business districts in cities. Um, and these may be cities where colleges are based. They may not be, but it looks like this is sort of a morphing trend and we're obviously keeping a close eye on on how that develops. Speaker 1: 03:51 San Diego stay quickly remove the stickers and flyers because they say they violated campus buildings and grounds policy. The school also says it values free speech. And is there an ongoing controversy on campuses as to whether this material should be removed? Speaker 2: 04:08 There is and it's, you know, it's, it's interesting to see how this plays out on different campuses, campuses that receive federal funding. Um, so a lot of state campuses are much more, they have much stricter adherence policies when it comes to first amendment rules and rights. Private campuses have a lot more leeway in terms of what they can do. If they just say, look, this doesn't fit with our philosophies. This doesn't belong on our campus, that's enough. But public schools will often have to sort of wrestle with, okay, what do we, what do we do to protect first amendment rights on this campus, but also protect our students and protect our staff from having to experience this kind of harassment? Speaker 1: 04:52 What types of things are schools doing and what should they be doing to combat this problem? Speaker 2: 04:57 So we often will see colleges and universities respond to these flyers and these propaganda incidents with on campus events that counter these, uh, ideas that reinforce the fact that they are welcoming campuses, that people are, you know, of all races and genders and gender expressions and sexual orientations, et Cetera, are, are welcome and are part of their community. That's the most powerful. And I think a responsible reaction. We at the ADL are very much in favor of free speech. We believe that the best counter to dangerous or hateful speech is more and better and, and positive speech. So that's, that's the sort of reaction that we advocate and we are seeing that around the country. Speaker 1: 05:45 I've been speaking with Jessica Reeves, editorial director with the anti-defamation League's Center on extremism and Jessica, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Speaker 3: 05:55 [inaudible].