The Olympic College security department on Oct. 10 fielded a report of an individual riding a motorcycle on campus who sported a Nazi SS bolt symbol on his helmet. The reporting party was unhappy to learn the emblem fell under the legal definition of free speech.
College officials are "viewpoint neutral" in enforcing policies that allow for lawful public discourse on campus, said Cheryl Nuñez, vice president for equity and inclusion.
That doesn't mean the college turns a blind eye to materials and activity that might signal a threat to the campus. Nuñez, school staff and student leaders have met over the past year-and-a-half to educate themselves about extremist groups. OC is not alone.
"Campuses all over the country have started these teams," Nuñez said. "There is a convening of college personnel to just take a pulse of the climate, to look at what's happening, with what frequency, in what location and begin thinking about proactive educational responses."
Nuñez is careful to say the team isn't scrutinizing specific groups on campus or in the city. She's also clear this isn't a disciplinary body. Instead, its goal is to determine "what are educational policies that support engagement across differences and help students make sense of the tensions that are swirling around them in the culture and even in the local community."
Nationally, tensions are at a fever pitch with last week's killing of 11 Jewish worshipers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and separately the arrest of a suspect who allegedly sent pipe bombs to critics of President Trump. On social media, there's a clash of dissenting views about a northbound caravan of migrants from Central America. And there's the midterm election Tuesday, the stakes for both sides at a historic high.
Against this backdrop, how are college officials to ensure the rights of all to free expression while protecting the safety of students and staff?
Policies on free speech, hate speech
Nuñez was hired in 2015 to lead OC's diversity efforts in a newly created position. The college's diversity plan balances a mandate to facilitate "the robust exchange of ideas and perspectives" with the goal of ensuring campus safety.
"Violence in our communities and on college campuses is taking place at an alarming rate," OC's equity and inclusion webpage states. "We must ensure that our campuses are free from hate, bigotry and incivility while working to eliminate implicit bias that demeans members of marginalized groups."
Nuñez said there have been no incidents on campus during her tenure that meet the legal definition of hate crimes, reportable to law enforcement. Yet she is aware that OC is likely seen by white supremacist groups as fertile ground to spread their message.
"As a college campus, like college campuses around the country, at least in recent history, they have been rallying spots for the promulgation of these viewpoints," she said. "There's nothing inherently dangerous about ideas. When people holding these ideas seek to promote violence, that would be very concerning."
White separatist fliers on campus
Shannon Turner, former OC student body president, saw the climate on campus shift toward the end of 2016.
"I started hearing some feedback from some of the LGBTQ students and the African-American population and the Latino population that there was a lot more racist remarks or hatred remarks toward them and dealing with them being on campus."
Turner, who is black and current vice president of the NAACP-Bremerton Chapter, said he personally didn't experience racist remarks at OC likely, he thinks, due to his leadership position on campus.
Toward the end of 2016, fliers posted by the group Patriot Front began appearing on campus and continued on a couple of occasions into 2017, Turner said. Patriot Front espouses a "pan-European identity," according to its website.
OC was one of roughly a dozen colleges and communities nationwide where the fliers appeared, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. One read, "Welcome to Occupied America, where morality is subjective, borders are irrelevant, decadence is encouraged and dissent is criminal."
Colleges tend to attract groups with a range of divergent viewpoints, Nuñez said. College policies follow state and federal law in allowing (within limits) off-campus groups to post fliers, demonstrate or disseminate informational material.
School policies identify designated spaces for off-campus fliers and group activities. New since the Patriot Front fliers appeared — but not related — is a policy revision from August 2017 that requires off-campus groups to get a timestamp on posters from the communications department. The policy specifies time limits posters will be displayed.
Banners are permitted only for college affiliated groups. The policy prohibits placing fliers on vehicle windshields.
Human rights groups vigilant
The Patriot Front fliers at OC coincided with a nationwide uptick in white supremacist activities on college campuses and in communities across the country and in the Northwest, said Miri Cypers, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League-Pacific Northwest.
Patriot Front is a "white supremacist group promoting racism, anti-Semitism and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of their European ancestors," according to the ADL's Center on Extremism.
"An African, for example, may have lived, worked, and even been classed as a citizen in America for centuries, yet he is not American," Patriot Front's manifesto states. The same applies to others who are "not of the founding stock of our people."
Patriot Front splintered in late August 2017 from Vanguard America, a prominent group in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Vanguard America co-opted bloodandsoil.org, the website on the OC fliers. Patriot Front's current website is patriotfront.us. None of its fliers have been reported on campus recently.
Identity Evropa is another white supremacist group that has been active on college campuses in the Pacific Northwest, Cypers said.
Northwest Front, a white separatist group based in Bremerton and dedicated to creating a "white homeland in the Pacific Northwest," is also on the ADL's watch list. Its leader, Harold Covington, died in July. Postings continue on the group's website.
"We have not heard about recent activity with Northwest Front," Cypers said. "Which doesn't mean there hasn't been any, but it isn't a group that's been as much on our radar as Identity Evropa and Patriot Front."
Andreas Donner, who appears to have assumed leadership of Northwest Front, tweeted on Thursday, advising "don't go making fake bombs and shooting up synagogues. And no, this isn't a CYA thing. You don't protect yourself or your people any good that way."
Turner, now the vice-president of the NAACP, Bremerton Chapter, said the NAACP is vigilant about the current national climate of incivility. Its initiatives in Bremerton, such as the upcoming Community Police Dinner, promote education on diversity and empowerment of marginalized groups, including the LGBTQ community.
Law enforcement: no immediate threat
In Bremerton since 2016, there have been nine incidents of malicious harassment, a crime in which the victim is targeted because of his or her perceived race or ethnicity. Most of these involved comments between individuals who knew each other; they don't appear to represent an organized effort, said Bremerton Police Chief Jim Burchett.
Bremerton police receive intelligence reports on potential hate group activity, and there has been nothing in the past two years to raise alarm, Burchett said.
Kitsap County prosecutors have reports of two crimes involving hate speech, one last year in which a suspect professing to be a "white supremacist" made racist comments to people at Kitsap Mall. Recently a woman was arrested at Harrison Medical Center for allegedly assaulting a staff member and using a racial slur. Kitsap County Prosecutor Tina Robinson said the county is attuned to possible extremist threats but is not aware of any locally at this time.
