Amidst the chaos, several students from University of Wisconsin along with their counterparts from other colleges around America urged the administration to make alterations. They cited the growing frustration with discrimination and racism on predominantly white campuses. Launa Owens, a Wisconsin-Madison freshman even reported that someone slipped a racist note under her dorm room door.
According to Owens, university officials straight away explored the possibility of the note being fake and that she created the note herself.
The note, according to her contained profanities as well as racial slurs. However Owens claim the university is more focused on the possibilities of the incident being a hoax instead of being concerned about the potential victims' well-being.
"When these types of things occur on campus, there is always a push that it didn't happen and it was a hoax," Owens told Diverse.
"The first response is to always question [if] it's legit, not to see if they are OK and what could be done to help them," she added.
Last week, Owens and three other class mates displayed a sign that read "#TheRealUW" and depicted the school's mascot, Bucky the Badger as a Ku Klux Klansman.
Owens strongly believes the letter was in retaliation to the protest.
Owens, who withdrew for the semester claimed that a UW staffer "harassed" her and wanted to take fingerprints of those who touched the note in order to ensure they weren't lying. However, many people had already touched the note by that time. Owens allegedly asked the UW staffer why she'd think that the incident was a hoax, to which she replied saying "there could be a possibility and wanted to make sure because she didn't want more damage happening to the university."
Although Owens accuse the University of wrongly viewing her as a potential suspect in the whole event, university officials, however have a good reason to explore the hoax scenario as far as investigating allegations of racism is concerned.
Earlier this year, at the State University of New York at Albany, three Black female students caused a social media outcry following their claims that they were attacked by a group of White men on a city bus. The group of White men allegedly used racial slurs while other passengers and the driver did nothing to help.
However, investigators found their allegations to be false. The women were charged with assault after a review of a surveillance video on the bus showed the three Black women attacking other riders.
In response to Launa Owens' allegations, Patrick Sims, Chief Diversity Officer for UW-Madison responded with a video.
"I don't know what's happening I don't know what the world is coming to but this, this needs to stop."
UW-Madison recently introduced new campus initiatives in order to address some of these issues, according to reports on NBC15.
"We will not accept this kind of hatred and this kind of venom lightly. Enough is enough," Sims added.
UW-Madison have initiated an investigation in to the letter.
