By Jason Patterson | USA

A picture of students with a poster board that said #buildthewall caused controversy among staff members and students, and one teacher even went as far as to declare it hate speech.

This all started when signs and posters started to appear across the university encouraging students to “report ICE activity” attempting to stop ICE officials from doing their job and deporting Illegal immigrants.

However, when someone tore down one of these ‘go against the law’ signs, university officials immediately declared it to be an “Act of Intolerance”.

Andrew Todhunter, a biology teacher at Stanford sent an email to students in which he described the incident as a “hateful act,” before claiming residents, “Now feel unsafe in their home here at Stanford.”

The incident was officially deemed to constitute an “Act of Intolerance,” which is any act that targets a group based on, “Gender or gender identity/Race or ethnicity/Disability/Religion/Sexual orientation/Nationality/Age/Social or economic status.”

In response, the MEChA de Stanford student organization made two hundred anti ICE posters and hung them all around campus.

MECha claimed that #BuildTheWall” flyer was “blatantly racist and xenophobic”.

Martin Alcaraz Jr, a student at Stanford on Facebook called the build the wall flyer a “hate crime” and said it was evidence that Stanford was encouraging an intolerant environment for students.

One wonders how the same students and staff would have reacted if someone had posted the ‘#BuildTheWall’ sign on their own door. Would they have been targeted for harassment or left alone?

The story is similar in nature to when “It’s okay to be white” signs were posted on campuses at several universities last year, leading to another hysterical moral panic amid claims that the signs represented some kind of threat.

Image from Stanford.