Students living on three floors of Bailey Hall emerged from their rooms one Saturday morning to find offensive writings and crude drawings covering their hallways.
An unknown person or people vandalized the interior of the Brody Complex hall after midnight Sept. 16, officials said.
Residents living on the three floors found papers, bulletin boards and message boards in their halls marked with lewd messages or pictures, some with race- or gender-related slurs. One such writing said, “Rape is sex: Deal with it.”
They also found themselves cleaning up Cheez Whiz from locks, doors and stairways.
Patrick Walker, hall government president, called the incident a “massive malicious vandalism spree” at a meeting held at Bailey Hall on Thursday.
More than 100 residents gathered to discuss the issue along with Bailey Hall staff and Residence Halls Association members.
RHA President Ed Bailey said his organization recognizes the episode as a problem and supports any and all plans to correct it.
“It’s important to make sure they have the best living and learning environment as possible,” he said. “And the first step to correct this action is to have the town hall meeting in Bailey.”
Some residents expressed concerns about maintaining a good hall reputation, especially in the eyes of visiting parents and children.
Others were offended and annoyed by the events.
“My intentions were to have more of a morale booster, to let them know there were other people in the building who felt the same way,” said Walker, a computer science sophomore who organized the town hall meeting.
Walker said most people did not view the incident as a prejudiced attack, but as a prank asking for attention.
“It’s not any kind of intolerance, it’s just the basic crap that freshmen deal with in college,” said Jennifer Carboni, a director at Bailey and Bryan halls. “Some are still in the mentality where pranking is just hysterical.”
Building procedure only requires officials to contact police if there is a hate crime - a direct assault on a certain group.
Since that wasn’t the case, residents have been forced to take the matter into their own hands.
Many suggested better communication and cooperation throughout the hall, with a focus on respecting and watching out for one another.
Carboni sees the situation as an extension of the community standards model now being implemented in halls throughout campus.
“We’ve moved successfully into the second stage, which is chaos,” she said. “What has to happen next is they have to decide what to do - to come up with a commitment to change.”
But other residents aren’t so confident that anything is going to change. Although none were as severe, officials say similar incidents have occurred in Bailey Hall and others.
Some said it’s really a matter of students lacking maturity, looking to stir things up.
“It’s basically a given that it’s wrong, and that is why they did it, because they knew it was going to piss somebody off,” said Sean Carney, a studio art freshman. “It’s happened to everybody.”
Another obstacle is that the incident occurred when most residents were sleeping.
“I think people will be looking out for each other, but I do think this could easily happen again,” Walker said. “If it does happen again, we might focus more on a universitywide problem and may plan a forum.”
Nicole Jacques can be reached at jacques9@msu.edu.
