Westside alumni at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL) have been roaming around campus with an alt-right extremist. A video on social media emerged, showing a white supremacist on the campus of UNL making comments about his pro-violence rhetoric. UNL freshman and Westside class of 2017 graduate Ethan Beier explained the situation.

“Basically a couple days ago there was a video that was posted on twitter of a guy, a white nationalist, who was talking about his experiences in the Charlottesville rally and how he was proud of what he did there and basically how he’s gonna be violent again,” Beier said.

Beier explained that many UNL students were outraged by the lack of response from campus administration. He also said people have been tweeting, emailing, and contacting their deans advocating for change. The incident has also been reported to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Mary-Beth Muskin, Regional Director of the ADL CRC, gave her insight on how the student is going about spreading his rhetoric. She said that by spreading his message behind a screen he is able to get notoriety.

“He’s very smart about how he does it. He’s the kind of person that might incite violence through his words, but has been very careful not to cross the freedom of speech line to date,” Muskin said. “Now that doesn’t mean he won’t [be violent], or cross the freedom of speech [line], so knowing about him gives security and law enforcement the opportunity to watch him closely.”

Campus has notified students of their plans to take action regarding the hate incident, however that hasn’t stopped Beier and other students from feeling unsafe. Beier said he hopes that the campus administration takes more action against the incident.

“Having somebody with such like hateful ideas and very discriminatory beliefs participate in violence like the Charlottesville rally, it’s kinda scary to have that kid on campus, to be honest,” Beier said.

Muskin said that there has been an overall increase of 67 percent in hate crimes and hate incidents in 2017 and a 29 percent increase in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa. She reported that the biggest increase has been seen in schools.

“When [white supremacists] were under the surface it was a bit quieter,” Muskin said. “Now they’re feeling very emboldened and they are bubbling up from the surface and that’s what we are seeing now, their empowerment and their emboldenness to speak out and to share hateful messages.”

Following the students’ demand for action, according to Lincoln Journal Star, UNL officials have responded to the demands to remove the extremist, and have reported that safety officials are taking action.

Although Beier said that a few students were seen participating in a neo-nazi rally, most UNL students and staff do not condone this type of hateful behavior.

“There was a neo-nazi rally outside the union, and then there was a big counter rally against that,” Beier said. “There weren’t too many people there for the neo-nazi rally, there was like a couple hundred people for the anti rally.”

Muskin believes this incident has unified students, despite the hatefulness the incident has stemmed from.

“People coming together and taking a stand and speaking out against hate rhetoric and violence as a group is powerful. It is important that we learn things so that we’re not caught unaware of what is happening at our schools, in our community and as a state,” Muskin said.

Story by Emily Kutler and Jane Glazer.