Grace Worwa – Staff Writer

A flyer belonging to a national white supremacist group was discovered on campus by a Gustie student on March 26. Others like it have been found around the Saint Peter and Mankato area.
Junior Grace Matson was walking across campus when she spotted the first poster on a light pole between Old Main and the Chapel. The flyer consisted of black lettering and red symbols on a white background, and it carried evident neo-Nazi messaging.
“I started to try and take it down, but I just ended up scratching it a bunch with my key,” Matson said.
Instead, Matson decided to alert the community. Since she is a member of the Radicals, she snapped a picture of the flyer with her phone and sent it to them via group chat. The Radicals is an art-oriented, Gustie student group that works toward social justice, and they plan on discussing the issue at their meeting this week.
Matson also posted the photo on Facebook and encouraged Gusties to tear down any more posters they might find.
“Realizing that there was the potential for other stickers to be around campus, I decided to take the picture and spread the word to let people know that it was there,” Matson said.
“I made the point to say that this is not something that is welcome on our campus,” Matson said.
The posters in question belong to a white supremacist group who self-describes as a “National, Socialist political organization.”
Shortly after Matson’s Facebook post, a bias report regarding the poster was filed with the Gustavus Bias Response Team. According to the team’s convenor Charlie Potts, he also received word of the Facebook post itself via another source.
“I immediately called Campus Safety and had them go to make sure that the sticker had been removed, and Scott [Meyer] from Campus Safety just flew over there,” Potts said.
“We understand that it could have an impact on a whole lot of different people, so we wanted to make sure that the sticker was gone,” Potts said.
The Bias Response Team is a small group of administration and faculty members within the Dean of Students Office. The primary purpose of this team is to investigate, report, and address incidents of bias on campus.
In addition to tearing down the poster, the Bias Response Team issued a campus-wide email informing the Gustavus community as to what had happened.
“We want people to know… so that they are aware and know the resources that are available to them if they run across incidents like this again or are having trouble processing the messages on that sticker. An important part of the issue was to make sure people knew who they could turn to if they needed,” Potts said.
The email listed Tom Flunker with the Center for Inclusive Excellence and Potts himself, who is with the Dean of Students Office, as resources for students who needed support or had concerns.
Gustavus is not the only college who has found propaganda on their campus from this particular neo-Nazi organization. Arizona State University discovered some posters in late summer of 2020 and Florida Gulf Coast University in October 2020.
In fact, according to their website, the group has been active in 13 different states across the country within the month of March 2021. In Minnesota alone, flyers were put up in nine different cities, including at least four each in Saint Peter and Mankato.
One of the posters in Saint Peter was found by Sophomore Zoe Zarth on March 26, the same day Matson discovered the one on campus. Zarth spotted the poster on a stoplight near River Rock as she was shopping in town with her friend. She had seen Matson’s Facebook post from about an hour previously and immediately recognized this new poster as being from the same organization.
“We peeled it off with our fingers as best as we could. It was stuck on there pretty well, so we just did our best to at least get rid of its main message,” Zarth said.
Two additional posters have been found thus far, including one in downtown Mankato and one on a utility box in St. Peter, according to Potts. That makes four of at least eight said to be put up around the Saint Peter/Mankato area.
At this point, little is known about where the posters came from or who put them up, but the Bias Response Team is still actively investigating the one found on campus.
They have already collaborated with Campus Safety to utilize the campus cameras; unfortunately, the cameras weren’t located in a good position to catch whoever put up the poster. However, the investigation goes on.
“We are continuing to seek information, which is what we always do when we can’t find the person responsible for an incident,” Potts said.
Potts also noted that the community would be alerted of any new insights.
“The messages associated with the group are not tolerated on campus. We take all this really seriously, and we want to be able to respond,” Potts said.
In the meantime, the Gustavus community can take action to combat neo-Nazi messaging and support all students, faculty, administration and staff who are affected.
Matson suggested a poster campaign of our own.
“We need to make our message of combating hatred more public. We need to let [neo-Nazi actors] know that this is what the message is on-campus and you are not being supported by the majority,” Matson said.
Gusties can also keep an eye out for more posters from the white supremacist group both on-campus and around the community. Campus Safety is already on the lookout regarding Gustavus grounds, but extra eyes are always needed.
“If you see something, say something. Everyone has heard that thousands of times, but it’s true,” Potts said
Posters found off-campus cannot be addressed by Gustavus resources, but those found on-campus can be reported directly to the Dean of Students Office, Campus Safety, or to the Bias Response Team via the Silent Witness Reporting Form on their Gustavus webpage.