Iowa college campuses respond to bias- and hate-related incidents

As soon as students get off Highway 30 and arrive at Iowa State University in Ames, they are greeted with bright yellow banners saying “welcome” in multiple languages.

This is just one thing Julian Neely, 22, a journalism and communication major from Des Moines and ISU’s 2018-19 student government president, said the university does to promote inclusion and reach out to students of different backgrounds.

It comes after incidents on campus this past year that included racist posters found in a college residence hall and a racist Wi-Fi router name on campus. But incidences such as these are not unique to ISU.

U.S. Department of Education collected data from 155 Iowa college campuses that showed 13 incidences of hate crimes occurring directly on campuses in 2016. Of these, seven were motivated by race, with two gender-related, one was motivated by religion, one by ethnicity and two by national origin. Other categories reported to the education department but with no crimes were sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

Read more: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/09/12/iowa-college-campuses-respond-bias-and-hate-related-incidents/1277924002/