‘Anti-gay’ and porn images found on professor’s office door – Marshall Independent
<!–
MARSHALL — An incident where a Southwest Minnesota State University professor’s office door was vandalized with an anti-gay slur and pornographic images is being investigated by law enforcement, Marshall Police said.
Marshall Public Safety Director Jim Marshall said Thursday that the university had referred investigation of the incident to Marshall Police. The investigation is ongoing, Marshall said.
Bill Mulso, vice president for communication at SMSU, confirmed SMSU had two incidents around the first week of November, where a university faculty member’s office in the Social Science building was vandalized.
“The university did investigate, and it is currently in the hands of the Marshall Police Department,” Mulso said.
Jeff Kolnick, professor of history at SMSU, said the first incident of vandalism happened at his office on Oct. 31. Kolnick said an anti-gay slur had been written on his office door with spray paint, and explicit images from gay pornography were also posted on the door.
Based on reports from people who had walked past his office door before it was vandalized, the vandalism happened in the middle of the day — sometime between 11 a.m. and 12:45 p.m., Kolnick said. More pornographic images were also posted on his office’s exterior window three days later, he said.
Based on writing around the explicit images posted outside his office, it appears they were all taken from a German porn magazine, Kolnick said. He said he thought the vandal had used a German magazine in order to target him as a Jewish person.
“I want to be very clear that I am not afraid. But I do not feel safe on campus,” Kolnick said Thursday. While teaching classes always requires mental energy and preparation, he said, “I have to gear up now in a way I haven’t before.”
However, Kolnick said the impact of the vandalism really went beyond just him.
“I am going to survive this,” he said. “But everyone who is LGBTQ+ or an ally, Jewish members of the faculty or community, or anyone who feels like they’re on the outside, they were also targeted by this.”
SMSU President Kumara Jayasuriya addressed the incident in two statements to the campus community last month, Mulso said. In one of the statements, Jayasuriya asked students, faculty and staff to aid with the investigation. In another, he said he wanted to talk about the incident at a university town hall meeting.
“These hateful acts targeted not only an individual member of our faculty but also LGBTQ members and Jewish members of our community. As a university, we commit to supporting those who are threatened and hurt by these actions,” Jayasuriya said in the statement.
“While as a university we are fully committed to freedom of speech, these recent acts do not represent those kinds of valuable expressions, which are essential to teaching, learning, civic engagement, research, and creative activities,” Jayasuriya said. “The recent vandalism instead represents hateful words and ideas that targeted an individual’s assigned space, defaced university property, and sought to cause pain and fear among members of our community. Such actions and sentiments have no place at SMSU.”
The university has referred the investigation to the Marshall Police Department, Marshall said. Marshall said Thursday that he couldn’t comment more on the case, because the investigation was ongoing. However, if anyone has information on the incident, they are encouraged to contact Marshall Police, he said.