The distribution of anti-Semitic flyers on the campus of Texas State University highlights the dilemma over whether university administrators should speak out against every such incident on campus, or whether it only serves the interests of those distributing the flyers by giving them more publicity.
The flyers, which were removed from the campus in San Marcos a little over a week ago, read: “White man, are you sick and tired of the Jews destroying your country through mass immigration and degeneracy.” Emblazoned with swastikas, the flyer indicates that it was issued by the Daily Stormer, a far right website which has a following among neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Following its discovery, Matt Flores, a spokesman for the university said president Denise Trauth did not plan on making a statement on the latest flyers, the fourth wave of extremist leaflets since November, adding that she had already made it “quite clear” that the opinions expressed by the flyers go against the university’s values.
This was at Alkek. @txst What are you going to do about it? pic.twitter.com/bXPwP8mUy0
— Sierra (@SierraNotNevada) March 4, 2017
But Trauth did release a statement in which she said: “Although I have shared my thoughts on this type of reprehensible activity numerous times, I cautiously do so today because it gives the perpetrators the attention they so desperately seek.”
A copy of the flyer, which was found at the school’s Albert B. Alkek Library, was posted on Twitter by an accounting student identified as Sierra on her Twitter account.
Colleges in Texas have been swamped with white supremacist flyers in recent months, mySA.com, a website of the San Antonio Express-News, reported on Saturday.
Speaking to the site, May Olvera, a journalism junior at the university, said she first saw the anti-Semitic flyers shared on Facebook by some of her Jewish friends who were “shocked and uncomfortable.” But she added that the incident and those that preceded it, “made people more alert and brought them together.”
“All of you know that the deplorable sentiments contained in these communications violate our university core values,” university president Trauth said in the statement, noting that the Anti-Defamation League “has reported at least 107 incidents of unauthorized flier postings across more than 60 U.S. universities since the beginning of the current academic year.”
The ADL has reported that the Daily Stormer was founded by Ohio-based Andrew Anglin, in 2013. Anglin is trying to reach out to “all disenfranchised and angry White males under the age of thirty,” ADL said, adding that he created the site after founding another neo-Nazi site, Total Fascism, in 2012.
