University in Washington state cancels classes after hate speech

By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE (Reuters) - Officials at a Washington state university cancelled classes on Tuesday after officials reported finding online comments that they said amounted to hate speech against minority students. Police have opened an investigation into the writings, which were observed on social media, Western Washington University President Bruce Shepard wrote on the school's website. The university itself remained open. The move comes during a renewed debate about racism on U.S. college campuses. Students from the University of Missouri to Princeton University have protested low numbers of minority faculty and what they described as officials' turning a deaf ear to racist speech. While police have found no threat to safety on Western Washington's general campus, Shepard cancelled classes for Tuesday after disturbing content continued to be posted early in the morning, raising students' fears, he said. "We are not talking the merely insulting, rude, offensive commentary that trolls and various other lowlifes seem free to spew, willy-nilly, although there has been plenty of that, too," Shepard wrote. "No, this was hate speech." He did not know if the perpetrators were among the 15,300 students at the school in Bellingham, about 90 miles north of Seattle. The comments follow what police said was the assault of a black Oregon college student by three white men. Online threats have also targeted students at Michigan Technological University, and in Missouri and Washington, D.C. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Von Ahn)