The temporary appearance of racist graffiti targeting President Obama in the Free Expression Tunnel at North Carolina State University over the weekend is causing all sorts of unnecessary drama.

Students upset by the offensive vandalism buffed it and put up their own message (pictured above), but then decided to really muck things up by blocking access to the tunnel as a form of protest until the university assures them that nothing mean will ever be painted there again, a virtually impossibility for a spot that has been bombed daily since the 1960s. Being that it’s one of only three key pedestrian walkways for a campus divided by train tracks, this led to heated exchanges between students who didn’t like the idea of having to take the long way because some dumb shit was spray painted on a wall.

A reader of Seattle’s The Stranger, sent activist-writer Dan Savage the below photo that was partly responsible for causing all the controversy and it ain’t pretty. Then again, neither are overreactions by some members of the student body.