“NKU will not tolerate the white supremacy graffiti defacing our campus today or any day,” the school’s president, Ashish Vaidya, said in a statement Saturday.
The graffiti included spray-painted stencils of the words, “Patriot Front,” and was found on ‘Housing Rock,’ a public space on campus which is used for promoting school spirit and painting positive images, according to Atley Smedley, Public Relations Specialist for NKU.
The Patriot Front is a White nationalist hate group that formed after the 2017 “Unite the Right Rally,” in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Anti-Defamation League said members of the group “maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it solely to them.”
Smedley said the graffiti was discovered at 2:39 a.m. on April 2nd by a member of the university community, which was then reported to the university police. The university has not yet identified any suspects involved in the vandalism and is still investigating, according to Smedley.
Vaidya said the university will conduct a full investigation and increase nightly police patrols following the new graffiti.
“This latest act of vandalism is contrary to our core values and our commitment to fostering a more equitable, inclusive environment in which everyone is valued and free from discrimination of any kind,” Vaidya said.
This is the second time ‘Housing Rock’ at NKU has been vandalized. NKU also discovered similar graffiti relating to “Patriot Front” in January, according to a statement from the university.
