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A new report from the Anti-Defamation League says that white supremacists are actively engaging and recruiting students on U.S. college campuses at an alarming rate.
According to the ADL’s Center on Extremism, white supremacists are leveraging grassroots tactics – including distributing racists fliers and organizing on-campus speeches by racists speakers – to disseminate their message of hate and recruit students.
Since the school year began in September 2016, there have been 107 incidents of white supremacists fliers found on college campuses. The ADL have cataloged 65 such incidents since January 2017 alone.
“White supremacists have consciously made the decision to focus their recruitment efforts on students and have in some cases openly boasted of efforts to establish a physical presence on campus,” ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. Greenblatt continued that while recruitment efforts have always existed, “never have we seen anti-Semites and white supremacists so focused on outreach and students on campus.”
Anti-Defamation League
The ADL believes the increased emphasis on college campuses is aimed to push white supremacist activity “from online chatter to real-world action.”
For example, last month a student sporting an Old Dominion University sweatshirt tweeted a music video entitled “white power” that quickly spread across campus. Back in January, a printer at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee was hacked, which caused anti-Semitic fliers to be printed.
Certain white supremacist groups are attempting to establish a physical presence on campuses throughout the country. As of now, racist fliers and posters have been reported on college campuses in at least 25 states, according to the ADL.
