An Iowa college cheerleader who took a knee during the national anthem was one of several students who had their dorm room doors vandalized with racist slurs.
The word ‘n*****’ was scrawled in black ink on the door to sophomore African-American student Alyssa Parker’s room during a string of racist graffiti attacks that plagued Stone Lake, Iowa’s Buena Vista University’s campus between December 8 and 11.
Parker said that she and her roommate, Emerald Jones, were catching up on sleep after studying for finals on Sunday, when they were woken up by a friend knocking on their door.
Sophomore Alyssa Parker, a criminal justice major, woke up on Sunday to discover that someone had scrawled the N-word on her door room door overnight
A close up of the N-word that was written on Parker’s door. She believes her room was targeted because of her participation in outspoken protests against racial inequality
‘He was just freaking out because when we opened the door, the N-word was written on our door,’ Parker told WHO.
Parker believes her door was targeted in part because she has participated in the type of protest against racial injustice and police brutality that is frequently being demonstrated across the country in professional sports including during NFL and NBA games.
‘We have a few black women on our floor, and it’s not like it was on all of their doors,’ Jones noted, adding that that particular slur was only written on their door.
Parker initially made headlines in November when she opted to quit the college’s cheerleading team after the school mandated that students stand during the national anthem.
Parker and several of her teammates had previously taken a knee during the school’s homecoming football game as part of their silent protest.
In response to criticism, Buena Vista University declared that students could kneel prior to the anthem, but would have to stand while the anthem played, a decision that prompted Parker to quit the cheer squad, WHO reported at the time.
At the university’s homecoming football game, Parker and her cheer squad mates took a knee during the national anthem in protest against racial inequality and police brutality
When the school decided that it was mandatory for people to stand during the anthem, Parker, the president of the Black Student Union, decided to quit the cheerleading team
‘I think that someone is just very upset with how loud we’ve been with our protests,’ said Parker, a criminal justice major and president of the Black Student Union.
Previous incidences of derogatory graffiti that had popped up on campus include a Latino student having the word ‘illegal’ written on his door, while a white student was targeted with a swastika and ‘KKK.’
The university’s president, Joshua Merchant, said in a statement obtained by WHO that he is ‘repulsed by this behavior’ and called the graffiti ‘deplorable acts,’ while urging students to speak out against hate of this kind.
A 19-year-old student, Ryan Bills, a former football player, was arrested in connection with the initial graffiti cases and charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief, according to the Des Moines Register.
Parker said the Storm Lake Police don’t believe that he was responsible for writing the N-word on her door, though.
The school is offering a $500 reward for anyone who has information on who is responsible for the graffiti and have arranged for additional security in the hallways of the dorms that were vandalized.
Both Parker and Jones left campus and will be taking their final exams at their homes in Des Moines, Iowa. While they said that they intended to return to school for their spring semester, they had not yet decided whether they would transfer elsewhere for their junior year.
‘I was just shaking pretty bad,’ Parker said the Register. ‘I just wanted to go home and didn’t feel safe’ after the graffiti incident.