Adam Tamburin

atamburin@tennessean.com

Another Tennessee college is confronting racism this week after a white freshman at East Tennessee State University came to a Black Lives Matter protest wearing a gorilla mask and carrying bananas wrapped in a rope.

The student, identified by campus police as Tristan Rettke, told investigators he came to the Wednesday event and approached Black Lives Matter protesters, waving the bananas at them and carrying a burlap bag with a Confederate flag on it, "in an attempt to provoke" them, according to an incident report provided by ETSU. Rettke was arrested and charged with civil rights intimidation — a felony — and was suspended while the university conducted a student conduct investigation. The university said Friday he is no longer enrolled.

ETSU said in a statement that the campus was "outraged" by Rettke's "inappropriate and offensive behavior" and said university leadership valued "diversity, inclusivity and respect for others." University leaders hosted a meeting to discuss racism on Wednesday night and shared a two-hour video of the conversation on Facebook and YouTube.

Students and higher education leaders praised the university's speedy response to the issue, but they agreed the incident was yet another high-profile example of the more subtle racism that exists every day on campuses in Tennessee and nationwide. A similar incident at Belmont University captured national attention last week, when a student was expelled after he shared a social media post calling black NFL football players "piece of s--- n----s" who needed a "bullet in their head."

Belmont removes student after racist post goes viral

Wendy J. Thompson, a vice chancellor with the Tennessee Board of Regents college system, was in the middle of a two-day conference meant to promote diversity efforts at campuses across the state — including ETSU — when news of the ETSU incident broke Wednesday. She said that many of the students and administrators at the conference were not shocked by what they heard.

"The only shocking thing about it was the public nature of it," she said. "On a college campus there are many other students who suffer more slights and indignities that are not as visible."

Thompson cited quick action at ETSU and Belmont as a positive first step that helps "set a tone" of acceptance, but she stressed the ongoing need for programs that promote diversity on all campuses.

"It's easy to react to an incident and it's easy to sort of rally all the forces together," she said. "The real work comes now."

Thompson said she hoped the incident would underscore the significance of pro-diversity initiatives that have become commonplace as the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings have led to more potent calls for racial equality on and off campus. The stakes for students who don't feel included in a campus community — because of race, socioeconomic background, age or other factors — could be high.

Often, she said, those programs "can be the difference between students staying or leaving."

ETSU President Brian Noland said he had been working for months with top administrators to strengthen the university's programming around diversity. Rettke's arrest illustrates why "that plan is all the more important than it ever has been."

Noland said his priority after the incident was to talk with students, in small groups and at the Wednesday evening assembly. Moving forward, he said, his team would work to re-evaluate the freshman orientation process to ensure students discuss issues of diversity in detail during their first days on campus. He compared that evaluation to recent attempts to strengthen sexual assault education for new students.

In the meantime, Noland expressed hope that Rettke's arrest would mark the beginning of a more positive movement on campus. He said an on-campus demonstration Thursday offered a hopeful counterpart to Wednesday's outrage, as students, faculty and staff linked arms to celebrate unity.

“Yesterday was a wake-up call for the campus as a whole and a reminder that the university experience and the social experience for groups on our campus are not always the same and are not always equal,” Noland said. “We’ve got to take what was an offensive and unfortunate situation and try to find a way to use that to have a positive conversation."

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and on Twitter @tamburintweets.