Last week, a member of the UCSD community had their car vandalized with anti-gay hate speech while parked in the Mesa graduate student housing community. Campus police have issued a community advisory, which you can download here.

The following is an excerpt of an open letter sent from Shaun Travers, Director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center on May 28:

Earlier this week a member of our community had their car vandalized with anti-gay hate speech. The person reported the incident to the police and has been working closely with the many response and support mechanisms the University provides. The community advisory below is in the process of being posted on the campus police website, and distributed to the Mesa graduate student housing community.

It is possible that the car was targeted in this instance because of the “Vote No on Prop 8″ sticker and/or the rainbow sticker. This incident should heighten all of our awareness around responsibility and safety. UC San Diego has made commitments through the Principles of Community, non-discrimination policies and affirmative statements on diversity to create and sustain environments where incidents like this should rarely occur. When incidents do occur, the entire UC San Diego community has a responsibility to increase its sensitivity to the way people are targeted because of their identities, communities and perceived status. The UC San Diego community also has a responsibility to confront hate wherever it occurs on our campus.

Concurrently, those of us who are targeted must realistically consider what steps we should take when an incident like this has occurred. For some, that may mean increased vigilance around physical safety. For others, it means conscientiously choosing when and where to be alone, to be visible and to be silent around identities that are targeted.

If anything happens to you or your property that is similar in nature, please call Detective Garrett Williams at (858) 534-4359, or 911 and report it.

Sincerely,

Shaun Travers, Ed.D.
Campus Diversity Officer &
Director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center