Pelton Condemns Racist Flyers Found on Campus

President Lee Pelton has sent a message to Emerson College students, faculty, and staff addressing seven white supremacist flyers that were posted on campus earlier this week.

In the letter to the Emerson community on Tuesday, December 6, Pelton said the flyers, from a group calling itself the American Vanguard, were apparently posted in campus buildings as part of the group’s Northern Propaganda Campaign.

“The posters were not put here to propagandize but rather to intimidate and silence,” Pelton wrote. “However, we will not be silenced. We will raise our strong voices of protest and our unassailable belief in the enduring power of our common humanity.”

Pelton went on to quote American Vanguard’s manifesto in part, which states “we want to be at the forefront of the reawakening of White racial consciousness…”

He said history is on Emerson’s side.

“It goes without saying that the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric of American Vanguard has no place on our campus as a community that cherishes the diversity of ideas and people acting together in shared interests as a sustaining and core value,” Pelton wrote.

In addition to asking the Emerson College Police Department to investigate the source of the flyers, which were found in an academic building and at least one residence hall, Pelton also directed community members needing support to the offices of Diversity and Inclusion and Student Affairs.

According to published reports, American Vanguard has plastered other campuses across the country in recent weeks, including Purdue and Central Florida universities.