Lettes to the Editor

We are writing to alert the Luther community of several incidents that have happened over the past few months. Each of these incidents has an overtone that is unwelcoming and should concern us.

• A multicultural student informed a Luther Diversity Center staff member that several months before, he and his girlfriend were at the Peace Brunch. He left his girlfriend at their table for a trip to the men’s room. While he was away, an older couple gave his girlfriend the following unsolicited advice: “You should date your own kind.”

• During family weekend, two international students reported that they were attacked by Decorah residents on their way home from Roscoe’s while walking on College Drive. The students were injured.

• This past weekend, several international students were involved in an altercation at Roscoe’s. Some Luther students harassed a female international student. When other international students jumped to her defense, the international students were called derogatory and insulting names, including racial slurs.

• Recently, the LDC received a letter from a student complaining that a group of Decorah residents were in Roscoe’s this weekend apparently looking to start fights with students from different racial backgrounds.

Enough is enough. The Luther Diversity Center staff works with others on campus and in the community to make Luther and Decorah a welcoming place for all. We ask for your help in mobilizing a public response to incidents like the ones we’ve described. Without a community-wide effort to stop hate, international and multicultural students will be at risk of being attacked because of differences in race, ethnicity, nationality or gender. Without our community’s willingness to share information and to speak up, more students may be affected.

Let’s be clear: Those of us who are not being harassed, intimidated or called names, should be upset that our friends, roommates, classmates and colleagues are subjected to this conduct. We call on Luther students, faculty and staff to stand against hate and we call on the Decorah Human Rights Commission to help our community respond in a timely, proactive and sensitive way to students who are being harassed. As law enforcement investigates some of these incidents, let’s send a broader message that at Luther and in Decorah, hate is not OK.

Sincerely,
Richard L. Torgerson,
President, Luther College
Sheila Radford-Hill, Executive Director
Luther Diversity Center