Students receive anti-queer letters

By: Ari Anisfeld and David Logan
Additional reporting by David H. Montgomery & Abby Rapoport

This story is an edited version of a previously-published story.

Sometime Thursday night 34 members of the Grinnell College queer community received anti-queer letters, according to Stephen Briscoe, director of Security. The letters come a day after a rally responding to a bias-motivated crime that occurred in a South Campus hall last Friday night.

Early this morning a student working at the post office received one of the letters and then notified security at around 8:15 a.m. Friday. “They were all the same type of letter, folded over and stapled together with the students’ name and mailbox typed on the outside,” Briscoe said.

Printed on the inside of each letter in large bold font were slurs and epithets, many including gender-specific anti-queer attacks matching the gender of the recipients. Among the slurs were “Fear God, not Fags” and “You can’t stop us fag—go and get some pussy.” Most of the students receiving the letters were part of the campus queer community, although some were not active on campus.

Security contacted the Grinnell Police Department as part of the investigation. Security is also working with ITS to find out if they can identify whether the letters were made on a campus computer or printer.

While Briscoe said that security cannot currently say with any confidence who may have sent the letters, he suspected the perpetrators are part of the college community. “I think it was someone on campus, to be honest,” Briscoe said.

Sheree Andrews, associate dean and director of Student Life, said whoever sent the letters, likely had information about the queer community. “It was clearly somebody who had access to a directory and it was somebody who was on campus or could come on campus,” said Andrews. “It was someone who knew who was associated the LGBTQ community.”

Briscoe said that security could not yet say whether the incident is connected to last weekend’s anti-queer vandalism.

According to Thomas Bateman ’10, who received one of the letters, recipients were contacted by Interim Vice President of Student Affairs Elena Bernal who then set up a meeting to discuss the mailings. “She wanted to make sure we were okay and find out what we wanted to do about it,” Bateman said.

Not all the students were completely comfortable with the meeting. Jose Segebre Salazar ’09 was somewhat disturbed that the names of the recipients had been distributed to individuals outside of security. “If you want to talk about it, that’s fine,” he said. “But just the fact that there’s a compiled list that’s gone outside of police record—it’s kind of scary.”

In an all-campus e-mail, President Russell K. Osgood expressed anger at the continued acts of intolerance. “We are very saddened and angered by what has happened. Those who engaged in these cowardly acts will find no solace in our community,” Osgood wrote.

Some classes were cancelled as students met in informal groups across campus to discuss how to respond to the latest anti-queer incident.

The centerpiece of the response was a second meeting in JRC 101 which appeared to have an attendance of well more than 200 students, faculty and staff. Bernal and Johanna Meehan, Philosophy, delivered opening remarks emphasizing that the message of the gathering was one of community and love, not one of hate. “[We’re] not here to talk about the negative aspects. We’re here to have a positive discussion,” Bernal said. “There’s comfort for people that are in this room tonight.”

After the opening discussion, organizers unveiled the gathering’s primary activity—love mail. Attendees took advantage of crates of paper and art supplies to make love letters for their friends and peers. “In response to the hate mail, the most beautiful thing we’ve come up with is love mail,” Bernal said.

Before this afternoon’s forum, a group of students were in the Spencer Grille creating t-shirts that emphasized community and tolerance. Jon Richardson ’10, who helped to organize the t-shirt making with Kelly Bosworth ’10, bought plain white t-shirts and colored markers for friends to use, but others quickly joined in.

“I thought some other people might join in, but this is amazing,” Richardson said. “It started with one table making shirts and there are five now.”

Jessica Issacharoff ’09, who made a shirt of her own, said she was particularly upset by the letters because she knew many of the recipients. “I have a lot of friends who got [the letters] and I was absolutely shocked,” said Issacharoff. “I would never have expected anything so aggressive. And so violent. It was just very violent language.”

Bateman, who participated in Thursday night’s march and rally, said he was not surprised that this happened after Thursday’s great show of support for the queer community and tolerance in general. “It makes sense that this happen[ed] after the rally because [the rally] was so effective and productive,” said Bateman. “This makes sense as a retaliation to that.”

Again emphasizing the positive responses to the anti-queer acts, Bernal also said that the letters revealed some sense of desperation. “Because last night was so powerful,” Bernal said, “the response back from folks who did not want to see that happen, who are living with this latent anger … had to come back just as hard as what happened the other night [with the rally and march].”

Some students, like Jose, felt that the magnitude of the response to both the vandalism and mailings incidents lent them too much legitimacy and impact. “We should not give them so much currency as to disrupt our personal lives and our lives as students,” he said.

While Andrews said she was upset by the mailings, she reiterated the importance of responding in a positive manner. “We want to go into a very positive vein with all of this,” she said. “Some of the fire we got going last night with the rally will keep on throughout the weekend.”

In addition to the community events that will unfold throughout the week, Bernal emphasized college services as a means of coping with the events. She urged students to take advantage of resources in the Mental Health Center, Student Services and their friends. “Everybody’s waiting to throw their arms around their brothers and sisters at Grinnell in support,” she said.

Bernal also categorically rejected the notion that the incidents mean that Grinnell College is not a tolerant community. “If this wasn’t an accepting community,” Bernal said, “you wouldn’t have the hundreds of people here last night and the hundreds of people here within a few hours of an e-mail.”

Bateman, while shaken, said he would not let the mailings significantly alter his perceptions of the Grinnell community. “I’m really happy with the Grinnell community in light of last night,” said Bateman. “It’s important not to view this as spoiling [the rally] and that the Grinnell community is not intolerant.”