One student at Maryland’s Towson University has taken extra precautions to create campus security by forming a patrol group. But the organization has been criticized for targeting African-Americans as the main aggressors in acts of crime.
The White Student Union is an organization founded by 21-year-old senior Matthew Heimbach.
“We wouldn’t see this huge increase in theft, sexual assault and actual armed assaults and robberies if the police were doing their job,” Heimbach told NBC Washington.
Instead, Heimbach has assembled a group of students who rotate weekly shifts and conduct unarmed, foot patrols to ensure campus safety and report any suspicious activity to the local police.
However, in a recent post published on the union’s website titled “Black Crime Wave Continues!”, the organization gives written warning that many of the assailants and criminals in the area are African-American.
“For those who are not Towson students it seems hard to fathom that every single day black predators prey upon the majority white Towson University student body,” the post says. “White Southern men have long been called to defend their communities when law enforcement and the State seem unwilling to protect our people.”
When asked if he thought the post could be read as offensive, Heimbach said, “Just like I wouldn’t be offended when we talk about serial killers. The average serial killer is a blue-collar, educated white male. It doesn’t offend me to talk about the facts.”
But despite the facts, local African-Americans in the community find fault with Heimbach’s premise.
“I thought it was racist but they have their freedom of speech,” one local African-African female said in the report.
Although the organization has not been officially sanctioned by the university, the Towson White Student Union has been recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The national civil rights group has labeled the organization on its Hate Map, along with other extremist groups.
Regardless of the organization’s listing, Heimbach insists he’s “not a future leader of hate.”
Follow Lilly Workneh @Lilly_Works