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Reed Removes White Nationalist Posters

Similar flyers have been reported at colleges and universities around the nation.

Chris Lydgate ’90 |

Reed staff removed white nationalist posters from campus last week within 24 hours of learning that they had been put up.

A student alerted campus authorities about the posters just before midnight on Saturday, November 25, during Reed’s Thanksgiving break. The posters were removed the next morning. In the meantime, students and other members of the community took down many of the posters themselves.

The posters appeared to be recruitment propaganda for a white nationalist organization, and depicted crudely-drawn hands labeled with the Star of David and the Hammer and Sickle threatening the continental United States.

Reed is committed to academic freedom, but college officials may remove posters that contain hate speech targeted at specific groups or individuals. As a private college, Reed also reserves the right to remove any poster from an unsponsored outside organization.

Similar posters have been reported in the last couple of months at Purdue, the University of Texas San Antonio and Texas State University.

Reed decided not to publish photos of the posters or name the group in this announcement. “The last thing we want to do is draw attention to a neo-Nazi group that is seeking attention,” says college spokesman Kevin Myers.