We can't hide from hate on campus
The University of Maryland fliers appeared three times on the campus this year. Similar fliers popped up at George Washington University in nearby Washington, where the FBI stepped in recently to help American University investigate the hanging of bananas in little nooses on campus. The strange fruit was found the same day that a black woman took office as student government president for the first time in the university's history.
The Anti-Defamation League says more than 140 such incidents have happened this academic year at more than 100 campuses in 33 states, with more than half of them since January. The newer groups go by such names as America Evropa, the Right Stuff and Traditionalist Worker Party.
The dangers in this national hate crusade poked through with bracing clarity on Friday as mourners gathered at the funeral of Richard Collins III, 23, a newly commissioned U.S. Army lieutenant.
Last weekend, three days before he was to graduate from Maryland's Bowie State University, he was stabbed to death while waiting for an Uber at 3 a.m. with two friends who were University of Maryland students at a bus stop on that campus.
A 22-year-old Maryland student named Sean Christopher Urbanski walked toward them, according to witnesses, and said gruffly, "Step left, step left if you know what's best for you."
Collins stood his ground. "No," he said.
With no more provocation than that, witnesses said, Urbanski stabbed Collins in the chest and fled. Collins died at the hospital. Urbanski was arrested a short distance away from the scene.
The story went viral nationally after police found on Urbanski's Facebook page that he was a member of an online hate group called "Alt-Reich Nation," a website that was later taken down.
Urbanski is white and Collins was black.
Campus police chief David Mitchell asked the FBI to assist after learning of Urbanski's connection to Alt-Reich, which Mitchell described as "despicable" in its extreme bias against women, Latinos, Jews and "especially African-Americans."
Yet Urbanski was charged with charged with first- and second-degree murder and first-degree assault but not a hate crime. Evidence was insufficient to link Urbanski's racial attitudes to his alleged actions. His lawyer said drugs and alcohol may have been a factor.
At least we can see the claims of alt-right snowflakes proved wrong once again. White people still get the benefit of the doubt when suspected of a hate crime, as they should -- just like anybody else.
As I tell my son for whatever good it does, students and university officials should push back against the racist right's recruitment drives, as long as they keep their actions peaceful. Bad speech must be met by better speech. Good people can't hide from hate, whether on campus or anywhere else.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
