New England College experienced two incidents of homophobic vandalism according to an email sent out to the student body by Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Luis Rosa. This is the third incident of vandalism on campus during the spring 2022 semester.
In the email sent out to the student body, Rosa detailed that, on March 28, a homophobic meme was written on the blackboard in room 114B of the Science Building. On March 30, another message was written on the board, this time it was a “homophobic slur” written in big bold letters.
Both messages were wiped off the board, the details of what was written was not given to the public.
“I didn’t think what I was reading was real,” said Keyanna Matos, President of Queer Straight Alliance. “With the amount of conversations that we have surrounding homophobia and racism, you think people wouldn’t have the nerve to do something like this, but they still do, which is an extreme problem.”
Just 2 months prior a similar incident happened with the vandalism of a Black History poster. The vandalism depicted former First Lady Michelle Obama as a devilish figure.
“I have asked the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to set aside time to be available to students who may have been impacted by the incident directly or indirectly,” Rosa said. “D&I Assistant Director Katherine Anthony is already working on supportive programming to respond to homophobic hate and bias.”
This being the only response from New England College, some students like Matos do not believe this is enough.
“There’s been so much conversation and so little action,” Matos said. “You can’t just write homophobic slurs on blackboard and nothing happens. If anything, it begs the question, ‘does the campus really care?’”
No one has been identified for the incident at this point.
