N.C. State students protest graffiti that threatened Barack Obama

RALEIGH -- Four students who admitted spray-painting racist and threatening graffiti aimed at President-elect Barack Obama at N.C. State University won't be charged with any crime, but their work was condemned at a student rally Thursday.

About 500 people attended the rally at the NCSU Brickyard organized by the student government to demonstrate opposition to the graffiti. The graffiti appeared early Wednesday as modifications to positive messages about Obama that someone else had painted in the university's Free Expression Tunnel.

By 10 a.m., university workers had painted the entire tunnel white to erase the offensive messages, and students began replacing them with anti-hate slogans.

The U.S. Secret Service assisted in the investigation, said Jon Barnwell, spokesman for the NCSU police. The federal agency was notified immediately because of the nature of the graffiti, which said "Shoot Obama" and "Kill that n--."

Campus police used electronic images from the scene and other evidence to identify suspects. Secret Service agents and campus police questioned the four, who quickly admitted what they had done. Federal agents searched their residences and determined there was no actual threat to Obama, Barnwell said.

Citing privacy laws, university officials declined to name the four. Even without criminal charges, they could face action by the university, including expulsion.

Campus investigators consulted with the Wake County District Attorney's Office before dropping the investigation of a potential hate crime, Barnwell said.

"They said that, while offensive, it was a free speech issue," he said.

The four students would have had to commit another type of crime while painting the offending words for the university to pursue hate crime charges, Barnwell said. If the graffiti had been painted on just about any other structure on campus, for example, investigators could have used charges of defacing public property and the nature of the language as an aggravating factor to treat it as a hate crime. In the tunnel, though, graffiti is encouraged.

About a month ago, a cryptic message about a Ku Klux Klan meeting was chalked on the Brickyard. Also, last year campus police found a noose made of toilet paper hanging from a restroom stall door inside a campus building. Speakers at the rally said repeatedly that they would not allow acts of hate and racism to characterize NCSU.

"We are here today as a commitment that we will not let bigotry, hate and violence define who we are," said Dr. Jose A. Picart, vice-provost for Diversity and Inclusion.

Even among students who agree on the basics, though, it was clear that race is still a complicated subject.

As Picart spoke, Jerry Bettis Jr., a Raleigh chemistry major, stood on a nearby wall, joking and chatting with a friend. Both are black.

Sophomore Nathan Connelly of Morganton, who is white, stood beside the wall trying to listen to the speech. "Hey," he told Bettis, "why don't you pay attention. He's talking about something that's important."

Bettis froze, then turned.

"My people have been saying the things he's talking about for years," Bettis said. "He's just saying it to a crowd."

Then he told Connelly there were other issues no one paid any attention to, like the need to make African-American history a requirement for history majors.

Connelly listened to the speeches awhile longer, then headed for a cafeteria, shaking his head. "I agree with him about hate speech, but some people aren't taking this the right way," he said. "People aren't even listening."

Bettis, too, listened awhile longer to the speeches, then turned to leave so he could study.

"Look, I'm not saying the speech was dull or anything," he said. "But diversity, change, equality, I get all that.

"That's no longer the issue, that's just the baseline," he said. "Now we need to move forward from here."