A vandal scrawled racial slurs on two windows — including looking into the office of an African-American professor — at the UC Davis Neurosciences Building recently. The building is at 1544 Newton Court in South Davis.
Campus police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
The professor, who asked not to be identified by name, said Friday that further insult had been added by the slow response — not by police, but by Center for Neuroscience administrators.
The crime took place between May 9 and May 12. The professor and his staff discovered it at about 9:45 a.m. on that Monday.
The words “N—– go away” look to be written in black felt-tip pen on the professor’s first-floor exterior window, in photographs provided to The Enterprise. Another message, “N—– lovers go away,” was found on a window, several offices down, that looks into the office of a post-doctoral researcher who works in the professor’s laboratory.
The professor said he went home after making the discovery. His staff contacted police and center administrators.
In about 45 minutes, an officer arrived at the building, spoke to researchers and took photographs, according to information provided by someone from the lab. Police later returned for follow-up interviews and spoke by phone to the professor, who has not yet returned to the building.
It took more than a day, however, before someone from Facilities Management turned up to clean the windows.
The staff did not want to remove the writing for fear it would imply they had something to do with it, the professor said, but administrators should have addressed the graffiti “in a microsecond.”
“For 24 hours, this nasty thing was still on the window,” the professor said. “It makes you wonder whether these people are really there to promote diversity. That is what really made me angry.
“It makes me wonder if this is a place for people like me.”
Campus police issued a hate-crime bulletin on Tuesday, the day after the report was taken. On Thursday, Rahim Reed, associate executive vice chancellor for campus community relations, wrote an email to the campus.
“Acts of hate, cruelty and intolerance have no place on our campus or in our community,” Reed wrote. “Such attacks on a few affect us all, and we stand together as a UC Davis family in rejecting them.”
Reed encouraged anyone who may have information about the incident or who experience or witness any other incident or bias to call 530-754-2677.