Facebook yanks ‘White Student Union’ page at UC Berkeley

The Campanile rises above a grove of trees at UC Berkeley on Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010. The Campanile rises above a grove of trees at UC Berkeley on Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Facebook yanks ‘White Student Union’ page at UC Berkeley 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A Facebook page created over the weekend claiming to represent a “White Student Union” at UC Berkeley has been removed by the social media company after it found that the page creator had used a fake name.

The page, which angered some students and prompted condemnation from Chancellor Nick Dirks and Vice Chancellor Na’ilah Nasir, was similar to postings claiming to be for clubs for white students at 75 college campuses across the country. Among them were UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Fullerton.

The pages said the campus clubs were open to “students of European descent.”

Some of the pages defended slavery and criticized Jews. The fake UC Berkeley page said the supposed White Student Union was intended to create “a safe space for white students to air their true feelings about the future of our nation” and decried the “invasion and degradation of the lands, institutions, and cultural heritage that are rightly ours.”

Although Facebook removed the UC Berkeley page and several similar pages naming other campuses, others were still live late Monday.

No one took credit for posting the pages, but a Web search of the term “white student union” led to a man flagged by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a leader of the “white nationalist movement.” It could not be confirmed that he was behind the pages, and efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

The page associated with UC Berkeley attracted several angry comments.

“This is insulting,” one person wrote. “We (white people) do not need a safe space. This is a mockery of a group of people discriminated against because of skin color.”

Dirks and Nasir issued a statement saying the page “is clearly intended to fuel conflict and provocation.” They said its message “does not reflect the values of our campus community.”

The administrators said they had asked Facebook to take the page down. By mid-afternoon, the Menlo Park company had done so.

A Facebook spokesman said the page wasn’t removed for its content, but because its creator had used a fake name.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov