“There’s a much bigger problem.”

Second racially motivated incident in 10 days

According to Monmouth College administration, on Sunday, February 19th someone in a white truck shouted a racial slur at a student of color. The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, immediately contacted Monmouth College Campus Safety to let them know about the incident. The student and the college reported the incident to the Monmouth Police Department.
This is the second incident in a two-week period involving Monmouth College students. “With the recent events including mine it shows there is a serious problem and something needs to be done…,” said the student. “There’s a much bigger problem.”
President Clarence Wyatt sent out a response through email to faculty and staff in which he mentioned the colleges plans to adapt to this new hostile atmosphere that has been created. In the email Wyatt said, “In the coming weeks we will work with student groups and others to facilitate a series of conversations to address these hateful incidents….”
“Although I wanted to blame myself, the problem is that people are going out of their way to show hatred towards another human being,” said the student. “I’m not hurt physically but mentally I’ve been altered by this.”
Monmouth is not alone as far as racially motivated incidents go. Grinnell College, in Iowa, a school similar to Monmouth College in size and atmosphere, has had racially motivated incidents occur within the last year. Looking broader, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program, in 2021 almost 65 percent of all hate crimes were motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry. Over eight percent of those crimes occurred in schools and colleges.

Lena Wickens - Editor and Chief