It all started in mid-February with the "Compton Cookout," a party organized by some UC San Diego fraternity members and other students that mocked Black History Month and encouraged attendees to dress to match racial stereotypes.
Since the party, a string of racially charged incidents at UC campuses around the state have added fuel to the fire. Here's a quick rundown:
In the latest case, police say a crudely-fashioned Ku Klux Klan-style hood was found outside the UCSD library early this week, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The hood was made out of a pillowcase and left on a statue of Theodor Seuss Geisel, where the campus was planning to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday. A rose was left in the statue’s fingers. In an official statement, university officials said that police are processing the hood and the rose for evidence and the individuals responsible will be punished.
"We will not allow this incident, or any incident, to deter the progress we are making to change and heal our university community,” UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said in the statement.
The same day, a UCSD student wrote an anonymous letter apologizing for hanging a noose in the campus library the week before. She was suspended from UCSD after claiming responsibility for hanging the noose on the seventh floor of the Geisel Library. She may also face criminal charges, the Union-Tribune reported.
In the letter published in the UCSD student newspaper, the student said she had meant no harm and described the incident as a stupid mistake.
"As a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by the recent issues on campus, I am distraught to know that I have unintentionally added to their pain,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, UC Santa Cruz officials reported finding an image of a noose on the inside of a door with the words "San Diego" and "lynch" on either side. The image was discovered on a bathroom door in the Earth and Marine Sciences Building, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.
"This incident is deeply disturbing. I want to be clear: There is no place on this campus for racial intolerance or hate of any kind," Chancellor George Blumenthal said in his Web site statement addressing the UCSC incident.
And the police department at UC Davis is investigating two recent incidents at that campus as hate crimes, the Sacramento Bee reported. On Feb. 19, a swastika was discovered carved into a Jewish student's door in a residence hall. Last weekend, graffiti was found on a campus building that houses the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center. An official said the graffiti "was clearly intended to be offensive to those the center serves."
Students at several campuses have protested and demanded that the university respond more aggressively. At UC Berkeley, about 200 black students stood in silent protest for more than two hours at Sather Gate this week.
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