Davidson Students Protest White Nationalism After Student's Posts

DAVIDSON, NC — Hundreds of Davidson College students staged a campus protest against white supremacy Friday afternoon, crowding the student union to denounce hate speech through speeches of their own. The move comes as members of the school's alumni demanded that school officials divulge more information following accusations earlier this week that a student at the private liberal arts school is behind anti-semitic and racist hate speech on social media.

Anonymous social media posts discovered online supporting the KKK and white supremacists, including those that marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, appeared to be connected to a Davidson College ROTC student, the Carolina Workers Collective said Wednesday evening.

The Shelby, North Carolina-based political activist organization doxxed — or revealed — the student’s identity after comparing an anonymous social media account containing the hate-speech posts with accounts publicly connected to the Davidson College student that contained similar photos and lifestyle details.

Screenshots of the messages in the anonymous account attributed to the student identifying herself on Twitter as “@femanon_” were chilling, and included messages like, “blue eyes master race,” and “heil hitler (say it back).”

“Our community is understandably upset over social media postings that gained attention last evening,” Davidson College President Carol Quillen said in a statement Thursday. “I want you to know that our campus is safe. There are no threats to campus, and our staff are addressing this situation.”

Alumni of the private college, however, say they expect the school to do more, including what it did to address previous instances of anti-Semitic messages found on the campus.

“An institution is more than only its stated values; an institution is defined by the actual ways its members love or hate one another, and the tangible ways they hold or fail to hold each other accountable,” the letter said. “The onus is not on marginalized students, faculty, or staff to stand against anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and bigotry. They’ve been standing. It’s time everyone else did as well.”

Sophia Nissler, a History and Arab Studies major at the college, said on Twitter that she had taken a class about art and culture in Nazi Germany with the identified student, and was “sickened by the revelations,” as well as the implications for both the school and the world.

As part of class discussion, students talked about a “Hitler did nothing wrong” message found on the college campus earlier in the year, she said.

“This anonymity is cowardice,” Nissler wrote. “There is no direct evidence that this student wrote the message 'Hitler did nothing wrong,' but her anonymous, disgustingly bigoted and hateful posts follow the same principle,” she said. “In a perverted way, it allows the perpetrator to feel powerful in their violence and hatred, because even without showing their face, they instill fear.”

This anonymity is cowardice. There is no direct evidence that this student wrote the message “Hitler did nothing wrong,” but her anonymous, disgustingly bigoted and hateful posts follow the same principle. Knowing that this student understood how the Nazis manufactured fear…
— Sophia Nissler (@sophianissler) November 8, 2018

Photo courtesy of Patricia Tilburg