Expel Perpetrators of Hate Crimes from Columbia Now

On December 2, 2005, Columbia College junior Matthew Brown and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences sophomore Stephen Searles were arrested by the NYPD after confessing to vandalizing a suite in Ruggles Hall, a student dormitory. According to the Columbia Spectator, "The students reportedly covered the door and walls of the suite with racial epithets, anti-Semitic imagery, Cyrillic characters, and homophobic slurs, according to Dean of Student Affairs Chris Colombo."





Dean Colombo's response? "We dont have the facts surrounding all this."





We DO have the facts surrounding all this. We know the following:





*Matthew Brown and Stephen Searles deliberately targeted the residents of the Ruggles suite, as reported by the NY Daily News (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/372865p-317093c.html)





*Columbia's hate crimes policy (or "bias crimes," as the Department of Public Safety calls it) is insufficient and contains no specific prescriptions for dealing with blatantly racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and white nationlist threats to students.





*Brown and Searles are currently comfortably attending classes at Columbia, and Columbia's hate crimes policy remains unchanged.





We, the undersigned, call on the Department of Public Safety, the administration of President Lee Bollinger, Dean of Student Affairs Chris Colombo, and Columbia University to expel Matthew Brown and Stephen Searles immediately. Until Columbia expels these two racists, the university is directly complicit in harboring admitted white nationalists who have assaulted its own students. We demand a no-nonsense policy for punishing hate criminals at Columbia University applicable to all future perpetrators on campus. The current policy is as follows:





"When Public Safety receives a report of a hate crime, an investigator will interview witnesses, collect evidence and make any and all notifications. Depending on the seriousness of the matter, the Department of Public Safety may refer the matter immediately to the New York City Police Department, may conduct an investigation, or may refer the matter to the appropriate dean or supervisor for Dean's Discipline or other action."





This is not sufficient. We demand an explicit and programmatic statute for dealing with hate criminals on campus. We demand the expulsion of Matthew Brown and Stephen Searles.





EXPEL BROWN AND SEARLES NOW!