Seven posters promoting a white supremacist group were hung inside two buildings on the Emerson College campus this week.
The posters were hung by the white supremacist group American Vanguard in an attempt “to spread its message and influence,” Emerson President Lee Pelton wrote in in an email to students. Six were discovered in the Walker Building on Boylston Street and one was found in a dormitory,
Pelton said the posters were a part of the group’s “Northern Propaganda Campaign” to spread its racist and anti-Semitic agenda, though he did not share details of the text or images included on the posters.
“It goes without saying that the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric of American Vanguard has no place on our campus as a community that cherishes the diversity of ideas and people acting together in shared interests as a sustaining and core value,” he wrote.
An Emersonalumnustweeted an image of what appears to be one of the posters, found in the Walker Building on Monday.
“The posters were not put here to propagandize but rather to intimidate and silence. However, we will not be silenced. We will raise our strong voices of protest and our unassailable belief in the enduring power of our common humanity,” Pelton said.
Emerson College police are investigating.
Similar posters have been found around the Purdue University campus in Indiana and at the University of Central Florida over the past two weeks, according to reports.
“We will not tolerate the promulgation of racist and anti-Semitic declarations in our community,” Pelton said.
The college’s offices of Diversity & Inclusion and Student Affairs said they are offering support to students.
