In an effort to stir up racial tension on various U.S. college campuses, an anonymous group created a number of "White Student Union" Facebook pages.
Such pages appeared on Friday and were associated with New York University, UCLA, the University of Texas - Austin, and more. The pages' creators were users of message boards such as 4chan, 8chan, and the Daily Stormer, a known white supremacist website, The Daily Beast learned.
NYU Local pointed out a thread on 4chan posted to the website's "politically incorrect" page requesting other users make fake "White Student Union" Facebook pages for various schools. The post's author noted the pages were already made for UCLA, Texas, NYU, and a number of other schools.
Regardless of the pages being a hoax, students and administrators were not amused.
"It's totally inappropriate and insensitive given the conversations going on right now," Prem Cohly, an international relations student at NYU, told The New York Daily News. "Racism is still very real, even here in New York City. There's such a history of white supremacy that this is troubling."
In recent weeks and before, several schools have responded to threats targeting people of color made anonymously on social media platforms.
"An anonymous person or group has started an unauthorized and highly objectionable 'NYU White Student Union' Facebook page; these kinds of pages have cropped up at a number of universities that have sought to have a real dialogue about race and inclusion," Matt Nagel, an NYU spokesman, said in a statement to NYU Local. "There is no such organization as this at NYU, the Facebook page is using NYU's logo illegally and without permission, and we have contacted Facebook to demand the NYU logo be removed. We reject - and we call on others to reject - efforts such as this to derail or distort candid, thoughtful discourse on race."
