Between the November 2016 election and December 2017, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups targeted Texas State at least 10 times, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The administration has struggled to respond.

SAN MARCOS — The morning after the unexpected victory of Donald Trump, a series of flyers appeared on the Texas State University campus featuring a photo of armed men set against the backdrop of an American flag. “Now that our man Trump is elected,” the flyers read, “(it’s) time to organize tar and feather vigilante squads and go arrest and torture those deviant university leaders spouting off all this Diversity Garbage.”

Students and faculty immediately began imploring university administrators to move quickly to quash what they considered dangerous hate speech spreading across campus. “We are not dealing with ‘different opinions’ here,” wrote assistant religious studies and philosophy professor Rebecca Raphael in an email to university Provost Eugene Bourgeois. “These are threats of physical assault. University leadership needs to call it what it is, and not treat this as if it’s part of academic discourse.”

Yet, internal communications obtained by the American-Statesman show that administrators struggled to formulate a response — not just to that first propaganda attack, but to waves of similar incidents over the next 13 months. At one point, Texas State administrators floated the idea of an auto-bot response to the increasingly frequent attacks— but, ultimately, they concluded it might be seen as insincere.

Between the November 2016 election and December, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups targeted Texas State at least 10 times, more than any other school in the United States over that period, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

At Texas State, which fought to withhold records related to the incidents, resulting in a five-month delay, emails show officials carefully monitored the impact of rising racial tension on donations, admissions and even the school’s Facebook rating.

Yet, as administrators tried to walk a careful line of political neutrality and free-speech rights, students and faculty complained they did not act decisively to denounce and fight back against the white supremacist flyers, banners and posters.

Internal correspondence shows rising faculty and student frustration over what critics saw as the administration’s dithering. In November 2016, the faculty of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction sent University President Denise Trauth a letter complaining of the university’s “placid response,” which faculty said did not “protect and support our diverse faculty, staff and students.”

“This gap has left space for fear and frustration to foment among our students of color,” the professors wrote.

Trauth declined an interview request about the university's response from the American-Statesman. In a written response to questions, Assistant Vice-President for Communication Sandy Pantlik wrote, “During these incidents, there is a need to inform and reassure our campus community. At the same time, we don’t want to give these hate groups the attention and publicity they seek. It is challenging to strike the appropriate balance.”

Internal records show neo-Nazi incidents at Texas State did not occur in a vacuum. In the weeks following the 2016 election, students and faculty reported: death threats against gay students; Latino students being told to “go back to Mexico”; and minority students harassed as they walked through campus. Officials said the incidents were referred to university police, though the school reported zero hate crimes that year.

The university’s response to the propaganda attacks may also have been misleading. Trauth and university police have blamed the propaganda events on nonstudent agitators seeking to divide the campus. But, a local leader of the Patriot Front, Erik Sailors, who had bragged of propaganda attacks at Texas State in the fall of 2017, attended the school as recently as spring of that year. And, according to faculty and students, some flyers and posters were found inside dormitories, raising the possibility that propagandists had student help.

“The university seems like they could care less,” said student leader Tafari Robertson in February, as a nascent student movement began to pick up steam. “I think (Trauth) is trying to tamp it down and pretend it’s not happening. I don’t think she realized the message they are sending to students of color. The biggest crime of Texas State is letting people feel that way.”

Central Texas an "active" area for white supremacist groups

At least four separate groups claimed credit for the Texas State attacks: the Texas State Vigilantes; an unnamed group linked to the prominent neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer; American Vanguard, a white supremacist group that held a rally in front of the Texas Capitol in June 2017; and the Patriot Front, an anti-Semitic and white supremacist group that recently has engaged in physical conflicts with protesters opposed to Trump immigration policies in San Antonio.

Carla Hill, a researcher with the Anti-Defamation League, said white supremacist groups often use flyers not just to spread propaganda to students, but as part of a sophisticated social media strategy based on footage of their members putting up banners or flyers.

Hill said the triangle between Austin, Houston and San Antonio has been particularly active for white supremacist groups and members, who have staged activities in all three cities in recent years. The University of Texas at Austin campus has been a frequent target, with 11 incidents since 2016, the highest in the state. In some ways, she said, Texas State is a “victim of geographic availability.”

But, Texas State may also have represented particularly fertile ground for hate groups seeking to sew discord. In recent years, the school made a remarkable demographic transformation, like the one unfolding slowly across the country.

White students no longer make up the majority at the school, as their percentage fell from 57 percent in 2012 to 47 percent in 2017, according to school figures.

Robertson said despite the school’s growing minority student population, it has been slow to implement diversity elements common at other Texas schools, such as a black studies program, a multicultural lounge and immigration attorney for students.

Student activists say racial incidents on campus predated the election. In September, a Twitter user responded to a post about an anthem protest at a Texas State football game with a racial epithet: “N*****s leave my school.”

Robertson said that the frustration that exploded into student activism after the flyers had been building for years. When the nation was gripped by police protests in places like Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, Robertson said he remembered feeling alone on campus. “No one was talking about it,” he said. “It was like it wasn’t happening.”

Students of color are "terrified"

A few hours after the Texas Vigilantes posted their flyers and posters in early November 2016, Trauth sent a message to the university community.

“People of all backgrounds are experiencing different emotions,” it read. “Discourse is fundamental to the academic enterprise, and this university strives to protect it. As Bobcats our aim should be to better understand that which causes divisions among us and to work toward strengthening our bond as a university community. Constructive dialogue is the best way to achieve this goal.”

The message made no mention of the flyers.

Trauth’s inbox quickly filled with angry and frustrated emails from faculty and students.

“If I am going to continue being part of this university I would like to know there will something to ensure that no one has to fear for their lives on campus,” wrote one international student, whose name was withheld by university officials due to student privacy rules.

A music professor wrote that “at the moment I do not plan to come back to campus unless the university can address this issue and enact some changes that will make the campus a safer place.”

Professors noted the neo-Nazi campaign was only the latest hate incident on campus. A communication lecturer told administrators she had reported to police that on Election Day a student had yelled at LGBTQ students, “Throw the gays from the top of the building!” An English professor told administrators that Hispanic students on the quad were verbally assaulted: “Go back to Mexico,” and “Time for you to go.”

“Students of color I teach are terrified,” an English professor wrote to Trauth.

A day after they appeared, Trauth acknowledged the flyers, calling their postings potentially criminal, while stressing the school aimed to protect “respectful” free speech. It did not slow the criticism.

The School of Art and Design sent a letter on behalf of faculty: “Hate speech must never be mistaken for diversity of thought.”

Shortly after Thanksgiving, Trauth issued a lengthy statement in response to the “hundreds” of emails she had received over the previous weeks. Saying the university would not “tolerate vile acts of aggression such as the vigilante posters that appeared the day after the election,” she announced an increase in university police patrols, as well as public forums to foster “communication of diverse discourse on controversial issues.”

She explained her response as “a corollary duty not to speak out on controversial or societal issues that are beyond higher education, absent extraordinary circumstances.”

Spike in white nationalist propaganda on American campuses

Trauth isn't the only university president to face criticism for how she handled racist propaganda.

Propaganda incidents on American campuses increased 258 percent in the 2017 fall semester, challenging administrators across the country, according to data from the Anti-Defamation League.

"The issue is bigger than Texas State," Trauth said in a statement. "We are a small part of a national problem."

Nationally, responses have varied. Some administrators tried to ignore or downplay the incidents, believing that addressing them directly would only give white nationalist groups the publicity they craved. Others argued that free speech protections meant campuses weren’t immune to offensive ideas.

While many condemned the propaganda attacks in strong language, few did so quickly or strongly enough for students and faculty who demanded schools to do more to protect their safety.

At Brown University, students expressed outrage when it took administrators a week to send out a statement condemning pamphlets distributed by Vanguard America. President Christina Paxson admitted an immediate and clear denunciation would have been an “opportunity to reaffirm” to minority students that the school was committed to their well-being.

When Clemson University waited four days to respond to similar flyers, angry faculty drafted a petition demanding a clear denunciation of racism and hate speech. “The silence of the administration with regard to the content of this leaflet,” the petition read, “serves no other purpose than to give sanction to those who promote and recruit hatred.”

At Texas A&M Corpus Christi, President Kelly Quintanilla drew flak when she called white supremacist posters found on campus “the price we pay for our precious right to freedom of speech.”

Author Lawrence Ross, who regularly lectures on college campuses about race, said administrators tend to avoid blunt conversations about racism on their campus. "Higher ed administrations tend to be disconnected from what's actually going on on their campuses, especially in terms of race," he said. "The racial climate is often viewed as being very good by the university president."

Ross said that after racial incidents, schools often follow a predictable path of minimizing it as an isolated incident and holding events like open forums, where students of color can vent their frustration.

What's needed, he said, is greater discussion with white students about racism on campus. "If the university doesn't make it a problem of every single student, you're going to have a repeatable thing," he said.



Complicating the response at Texas State was the increasing politicization of free speech, highlighted by the controversies over campus speaking engagements by alt-right figures such as Richard Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos. In January, Republican state leaders chose Texas State for a hearing as lawmakers considered legislation to prevent what they considered overzealous administrations from corralling the free speech of conservative students and voices.

During the hearing, Trauth said Texas State was home to a wide range of political leanings, from the far left to the far right. “My job is to ensure that those voices across the spectrum will be heard,” she said.

Frustration among administrators

Shortly after students returned from winter break in January 2017, the campus was hit again by racist flyers, this time as part of a coordinated attack on campuses in Texas and other states by American Vanguard. The posters urged white people to “take your country back!”

The next day, Trauth issued another message to the university, focusing on the school’s response to a recent executive order banning U.S. entry from seven Muslim countries. Only the final paragraph addressed the posters and flyers, which she said she personally found “reprehensible.”

“These fliers are meant to divide us,” she concluded. “Do not allow that to happen.”

One student wrote to Trauth, praising “how neutral you remain in your emails in order to not offend any side, but you still stand up for your community.”

But others argued Trauth was again failing to prioritize student safety. “I understand your need to provide a welcoming environment for all students regardless of political views, but I wonder if perhaps you are favoring a generalized objectivity over the need for an immediate and forthright response against hate groups on campus,” 2012 graduate Matt Korn wrote to her the next day.

Trauth responded that university police and staff were “addressing the issue.”

A month later, another series of flyers appeared on campus. Featuring swastikas, they asked: “White man, are you sick and tired of the Jews destroying our country through degeneracy? Join us in the struggle for White Supremacy.”

This time, Trauth declined to make any statement. Raphael, the associate professor of religious studies and philosophy, wrote to administrators: “As for the president, I suppose that she is weary of delivering the post-hate-flier sermon. Even so, non-response can too easily look like (or be) giving up —or serves to normalize what shouldn’t be normalized.”

A week later, Trauth finally released a statement condemning the flyers. She said she released the message cautiously as it “gives the perpetrators the attention they so desperately seek.”

But, administrators were becoming frustrated. When another set of racist, business-card-sized messages were found on campus days later, Provost Eugene Bourgeois wondered in an email to concerned faculty: “If she had sent out a message on Monday, would she be expected to send another out today in the wake of the cards being found?”

In late October, the campus received a barrage of propaganda attacks from the Patriot Front, including the hanging of a large banner across the university’s Alkek Library on the main quad. In online chats obtained by the independent media organization Unicorn Riot, Sailors, the former student who's now a Patriot Front leader, posted a photo of the banner, as well as Twitter posts from students responding to it. “20 mins of work and we trigger hundreds,” Sailors wrote, noting the action marked the group’s fifth attack at Texas State.

Though Sailors was no longer a student, he still had connections on campus. On Nov. 2, Sailors posted a photo from a Texas State classroom of a professor displaying various flyers on a PowerPoint presentation.

University officials say that at the time they weren’t aware of Sailors involvement until he was detained by San Marcos police. “His actions in no way represent the shared values of Texas State, our students, or our faculty and staff.”

Flyers stop, fallout continues

Shortly after Thanksgiving 2017, the white supremacist propaganda attacks sparked an even more divisive chapter at Texas State, which would again test the administration.

At the end of November, student guest columnist for the school newspaper Rudy Martinez penned a column titled “Your DNA is an abomination.”

“(W)hite death will mean liberation for all,” he wrote. “I hate you because you shouldn’t exist.”

Although Martinez later said the column was written in response to the recent white supremacist activity, conservative media, including Fox New Channel’s Tucker Carlson show, picked up the piece as an example of anti-white sentiment on college campuses. It generated a tsunami of anger from alumni, donors and officials that administrators anxiously monitored.

The following day, Trauth issued a statement: “I am deeply troubled by the racist opinion column that was published,” she wrote. “As president of a university that celebrates its inclusive culture, I detest racism in any manifestation.”

Many felt the message didn’t go far enough and demanded that the university strip the University Star newspaper of its funding.

“Texas State has shown itself to be infested with unchecked racism towards Whites,” one parent wrote. “I cannot allow my daughter to attend such a hateful school.”

But others accused Trauth of a double standard. “I am appalled you were quicker to respond to this opinion piece than you were to the multiple white supremacist banner droppings and flyer distributions that have happened this school year,” wrote one former student.

Martinez said Trauth’s statement fueled threats against him. “She basically put a mark on my back,” Martinez said.

The school began to carefully track how the story was playing online, internal communications show.

On Dec. 1, social media assistant director Caitlin Harvey reported that the school had received 46 one-star Facebook reviews related to the episode, driving the school’s rating down from 4.7 out of 5 at the beginning of the semester, to 4.6.

Days later, university officials were working on a plan to get “Good News” about Texas State to the public. Barbara Breier talked of developing a response in conjunction with university marketing “because the negative news could affect recruiting.”

On Dec. 3, university police stopped several men inside the school’s San Jacinto garage carrying stacks of Patriot Front flyers. The men were given a warning, which police said would give them the authority to issue citations if they came back on campus. The school has refused to release police reports from that night, but San Marcos police say Sailors, the former student, was one of three men stopped that same night by San Marcos police.

Since that night, reports of hateful flyers have stopped at Texas State, though their aftershocks continue to transform the campus. This spring, energized student activists successfully pushed for the removal of student government president Connor Clegg, who had called for the university newspaper to be defunded, and staged a sit-in at the university student center. Administrators agreed to a series of their demands, including the hiring of an immigration attorney, establishing a new African-American studies minor by the fall 2019 and diversifying courses in the school’s core curriculum.

At an emergency town hall meeting with students in late April, Trauth got another earful from angry students. “Why,” Robertson asked Trauth, “are you confused about our frustration?”