Students who received a threatening e-mail through their Facebook accounts last week gathered support and spoke out against racism during a sit-in in the Student Union on Monday, the first day of Diversity Week. Members of the campus chapters of the NAACP and the Young Democrats sponsored the sit-in near the snack bar area of the Student Union to speak out against discrimination. Combining the sit-in with the launch of the group’s “Erase Racism Campaign,” members of the two groups used a campus public address system to relate their experiences with racism and asked others in the Union to do

the same.

“Stereotypes are racism too,” Willie Hughes, culinary arts junior, said. “We’re all guilty of it.”

Mariam Matteuzzi, Mass Communication Sophomore, president of the Young Democrats, said the need for the sit-in arose from the aftermath of the racist e-mail that was received by students last week.

Three Nicholls students were targeted by an individual through the social Web site Facebook. The person sent a message to the students revealing that he “plans to (kill) 3,000 … in a month’s time because of Barack.”

The students immediately contacted University Police and an investigation began, eventually tying in the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office, the Louisiana State Police and the F.B.I. Eastern District.

On Monday, the FBI reported that a 19-year-old African American male in Poplarville, Miss. was responsible for the e-mail, and that charges are pending the completion of the investigation.

According to a campus alert rel eased on the Nicholls Web site, “there was no creditable threat to the University or its students.”

But on the day following the e-mail, the targeted students were not happy with the University’s choice not to increase security on campus. The University Emergency Review and Response Team met that day and determined that “the message appears to be broad-based and not focused on Nicholls or the surrounding community. If a direct threat is determined appropriate action will be taken by the University and you will be notified.”

The students, dissatisfied with that response, contacted a New Orleans investigative journalist to help get answers to their concerns. The reporter met with students and Eugene Dial, vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Services, in the Quad on Friday to discuss what happened.

“We want to investigate anything that our students feel threatened by,” Dial said. “NSU prides itself on having one of the safest campuses in the state.”

However, Matteuzzi said she and several others don’t feel safe since the election. She said an increased element of racism has been experienced and that is why her group decided to hold the sit-in.

“We want to address things that happened because of the situation on campus,” Matteuzzi said. “We all realize this University is diverse, but it is still separated.”

Matteuzzi feels the Erase Racism Campaign sit-in was a success in bringing different points of view out into the open.

“It’s a touchy subject, but if we don’t talk about this issue, people will develop misconceptions,” she said. “It needs to be discussed to keep people from engaging in hurtful activities that could lead to violence.”

Matteuzzi said she feels Diversity Week needs more activities to bring different students with different cultures together. She said she experienced a culture shock when she transferred to Nicholls from San Francisco and many other students experience the

same feeling.

“There are hundreds of international students and transfers who don’t understand the local culture,” she said. “Diversity Week should be about exposing them to this area and its people.”

Matteuzzi added that the recent presidential election divided the nation and also divided the campus. She claims that students who felt separated before the election, feel it even more prominently now.

“I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best,” Matteuzzi said. “‘Men often hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they can not communicate. They can not communicate because they are separated.’ We really need to work on understanding one another.”

Matteuzzi said the next event for the Erase Racism Campaign will be a candlelight walk which will be held later this semester.