Earlier this month, an incident on University of Minnesota’s campus illustrated just how the current state of affairs rouses strong feelings on both sides of the campaign line. During the U’s annual “Paint the Bridge” event, where student groups on campus paint murals to demonstrate their mission and promote their community, the College Republicans caused quite an uproar. Their mural read “Build the Wall,” next to a banner advocating for Trump/Pence 2016. Within 24 hours, members of students groups promoting multiculturalism spray painted over the mural with the message “Stop White Supremacy,” an act considered by many authorities on campus, including President Eric Kaler, to be vandalism.
In response to the act of protest Kaler had this to say: “The University of Minnesota supports a campus climate that welcomes all members of our community and our values of equity and diversity, but that also ensures the free flow of ideas, even those that are offensive to some. We encourage all who find some protected speech distasteful or offensive to engage in more protected speech.” This read, to many latino and muslim students, as a defense of the actions of the College Republicans. The group later issued a statement invoking freedom of speech as an excuse to refuse to extend an apology to those offended.
“This rhetoric is not just rhetoric we see on the news. It’s hitting homes, on campuses and daily lives,” U of M student Shaker Ali shares his reaction to the incident. “These issues are coming closer and closer to home with each election cycle.”
This incident and many more across the country are signs this election cycle is certainly indicative of a flux in American politics and that politics in 2016 is not confined to Washington. Yet, if so many Muslims are Republicans, they are pigeonholed.