A noose was found hanging outside of an MSU student's dorm room, according to a statement released by President Lou Anna K. Simon today.

In the statement, the university describes it as a "racial incident."

The event has launched an investigation with MSU Police and the Office of Institutional Equity. 

"While at this time we do not know all of the details, the Spartan community can be assured we are vigorously investigating this situation," Simon said in the statement. 

Simon's full statement can be found here.

Student leaders received a notification from Vice President for Student Affairs and Services Denise Maybank, Associated Students of Michigan State University President Lorenzo Santavicca said.

“I am distressed as much as the president states in her statement,” Santavicca said. “I am disgusted and quite frankly, I’m disappointed.”

Santavicca said regardless of the way students look, study and interact with others, all students need to treat each other with respect.

“There is absolutely racism on our campus that we have to address. We have to do better. I’m going to hold ourselves accountable to making sure we do whatever we can for the communities on our campus that are particularly targeted and affected by racial incidents. And quite frankly, we need to call it what it is — it is racism,

Santavicca said he will be discussing the matter with the ASMSU General Assembly.

As of 2 p.m., MSU has not yet notified all students.

The MSU community responded with tweets supporting a hate-free campus.