The threat of violence from domestic extremist groups is equally as dangerous as international terrorism, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced recently. One of the most “potent ideologies” behind this rise in domestic extremism, according to DHS, is White supremacy.
Despite this danger, colleges and universities have limited capability when it comes to monitoring White supremacist activity in and around campus. But institutions can take steps to stay vigilant of the hate groups that have increasingly intimidated and pursued student populations for recruitment in recent years.
“These outside groups target campuses because higher education is seen as a bastion of liberal thinking and because a lot of the members of these groups are young people who are trying to [recruit] other people their age,” says Elissa Buxbaum, director of National College and University Programs for ADL. Formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League, the organization is a leading source of data collection and advocacy against hate groups.
Buxbaum encourages students and institutions to report instances of White supremacist propaganda or other activity to ADL. The organization has 25 regional offices and regularly works with administrators, security, bias response teams, student governments, and more.
Education and open dialogue are key to combatting White supremacist ideology, Buxbaum says. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programming can raise awareness of modern hate groups, their strategies, and beliefs. If evidence of White supremacist activity does show up on campus, ADL urges institutions to use the incident as a teaching moment.
For example, the appearance of a flyer that says “It’s okay to be White” is an opportunity to start a dialogue on campus about race and identity that includes “people who might be questioning what their White identity means” in today’s multicultural environment, Buxbaum says.
Showing solidarity in the face of hate speech and ideologies is key to ensuring students feel safe and supported and in sending a message that such values have no place in higher education, she says. Buxbaum gives the example of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which has been the target of anti-Semitic graffiti several times in recent years.
These messages have been spray-painted on “the Rock,” a large stone on campus that students use for artwork and for publicizing events. When anti-Semitic graffiti appeared on the Rock last year, the university held an event for the campus community to paint over it with messages praising diversity and multiculturalism.
When anti-Semitic graffiti showed up again on September 11 of this year, the university created a continuous livestream of the Rock, available for viewing to all students, to promote the idea that the entire community is united in protecting it.
Brian Levin, JD, agrees that education and maintaining a united front are key for colleges and universities in combatting recruitment and intimidation tactics from White supremacist groups. As director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), Levin has been tracking domestic and international hate groups for more than three decades. While this work is extremely labor intensive, he says there are simple tactics that schools can take to stay vigilant.
“The first thing that needs to be done is assessment and figuring out what a community looks like and how is it changing,” Levin says, explaining that discrimination and hate incidents are more likely to occur in communities where there is a sudden shift in demographics. Secondly, he recommends institutions have “clear policies and ways that these kinds of incidents can be reported,” he says.
Levin also recommends that colleges be aware of evidence of White supremacist activity that is not explicitly hate speech or obvious propaganda. “Be on the lookout for cultural symbols related to prejudice and discrimination because they are precursor signals,” he says. Slogans such as “defend western civilization” and once-popular memes like Pepe the Frog are less obvious than swastikas but still indicate the presence of White supremacy, he says.
Much of the symbolism of young White supremacist groups is connected to the online “meme world and gamer world,” and schools are not always tuned in to how formal and informal hate groups appropriate these symbols, Levin says.
ADL recently added 36 new entries to its database of hate symbols. The organization, which has recently worked with the U.S. Senate and other government agencies on this threat, released its updated list the same day that DHS announced it was adopting new strategies to focus on domestic extremism.
ADL’s database of White supremacist and far-right extremist symbols is available online at adl.org, along with multiple resources such as college programs and campaigns for educating campus communities about the resurgence of hate groups in the U.S.
It is imperative that schools cultivate an open dialogue about hate speech and extremist ideologies, Levin says.
“Colleges should teach their students the fact that under the First Amendment, certain types of opinions and views that they might find offensive or disagreeable are nonetheless protected in an academic environment and should not be conflated with acts of violence or discrimination,” he says. “But when [hate incidents] do happen, don’t dismiss them and don’t cover them up, but use them as part of a teachable moment.”
Mariah Bohanon is the associate editor of INSIGHT Into Diversity. This article ran in the November 2019 issue.
