White extremist propaganda surged by almost 60 percent on Midwestern college campuses last year. That’s according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.
Of all the states in the ADL’s Midwest region, white supremacist flyers and stickers were most prevalent in Illinois.
There were 15 reported cases on Illinois university and community college campuses between last September and May of this year.
Lara Trubowitz, with the ADL, said the messages are meant to make minority students feel unwelcome.
“We know that when targeted populations on college campuses feel under threat that those are obstacles to academic success,” she said.
Trubowitz said there’s been a softening of white supremacist language and symbols, such as the swastika.
“Once upon a time white supremacist propaganda would have said 'keep the immigrants out,’ or 'keep the Jews out,’” she said. “It might say something like 'diversity is destroying the nation’ or ‘white people, don’t you want your identity respected?’”
At Eastern Illinois University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, someone posted flyers and stickers that read “European Roots, American Greatness.”