The month of October saw the Sacramento City College campus facing graffiti incidents that involved derogatory language and symbols, such as racial slurs and swastikas.

Concerns were raised to the college administration at SCC about how the matter was handled, with students protesting on the campus and writing about their disappointments on social media.

“We started conversations with students, we’ve been encouraging students that if they see anything, know anything, to come forward and make a report,” SCC Public Information Officer Kaitlyn MacGregor said. “One of the best ways we get information on our campus is from our students.”

MacGregor continued, detailing the importance of student participation and adding refinement to the ‘communication flow’ amongst the staff and faculty.

“A second thing we‘ve been discussing with our LRPD and operation teams that when they see stuff, to make sure that they’re letting us know it’s moving all the way up to the administrative level so that if we need to alert our students, we can.” MacGregor said.

In regards to changes to the campus policies, MacGregor said the campus and district already made clear its stance toward hate speech and racism but are still aiming to improve processes.

“One thing we’re looking at now is doing an online reporting forum for our equity officer and trying to make sure there’s a way to report directly online to them if there’s an instance of bias or racism that they want to report,” MacGregor said.

“That’s not necessarily a districtwide policy change, it’s something that we’re handling here on our campus.”

While it appears not many actions are occurring districtwide, MacGregor said she has been in communication with other PIOs and stays up-to-date about events at other colleges.

“I think those are also good opportunities to create a good environment that really fights against hate and bringing everyone together as a campus community, seeing as we can watch out for each other and help each other out,” MacGregor said.

Students like 24-year-old Bobbie Bray said she hopes the people in charge at SCC can figure out what to do.

“I don’t have the answer for what the administration should do,” Bray said. “I pray that God would give the wisdom to proceed the way that would best suit the demographic at Sac City.”

Eighteen-year-old communications major Ezra Hurt said he thinks the CRC administration should take away a message of togetherness from the incident.

“Approach it from unification rather than division. If there’s something that’s meant to divide and we take it as an opportunity to recognize differences and we come together because of differences, then it eliminates the initial issue and provides an opportunity for community,” Hurt said.

Bray said she thinks the reaction at CRC would’ve occurred differently had the graffiti been found in one of the bathrooms.

“Here at CRC, I don’t think that we would even find that in our bathrooms and if we did, I think there’s enough camaraderie amongst our different people that we would be able to mend that quickly, in regards to hurt and pain,” Bray said. “I don’t think there would be something like a backlash or anything like that.”

Since the graffiti at SCC, American River College recently had unauthorized flyers posted around their campus that some have perceived as promoting white supremacy.

So far, the district has not put out any statements on their website or social media addressing these incidents.