What Would You Do...

If you were "asked to leave" college after drawing swastikas on dormitory doors to make a point?

One of the incidents that Alex had to work on this weekend was investigating a string of vandalisms across the residence halls at GW. After catching a student who drew two swastikas and scrawled a racial epithet on Saturday (full story here), the University caught another student who drew swastikas on her door "looking for acknowledgment from University that someone drew a swastika on the door," (full story here).

On the one hand I feel sad that this freshman felt that she had to resort to vandalizing her own door, and that she is leaving the university for drawing a racist symbol even though she did not have a racist intent. I am sure that another university will take her, but for a long time she will have to explain to other people why she got kicked out of her first school.

Yet on the other hand I feel like it was just really stupid. First and foremost, she contributed to the tensions on the campus and could have caused distress on many students. When the police first asked her about it, she did not even take ownership of her stand.

Secondly, who is she to assume that the university was not fully aware or did not care about the previous vandalism incidents. Maybe I am too biased on the side of the establishment (police, university, boyfriend who works for the university), but it does seem like they took this seriously and did not need the prodding of another student. They did in fact find the first perpetrator.

I know there are worse things to be kicked out of college for, but this would still not be a fun one to explain over Thanksgiving dinner.