Sunday afternoon, SGA, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Sigma Phi Epsilon sponsored the construction of a shoulder-height wall outside the UC. The construction of the wall was part of the Writing on the Wall Project, which is a key component of Diversity Week at UTM.

According to event coordinators, the gray brick-and-mortar wall is a physical representation of oppression and hatred. Sunday, students wrote racial slurs and symbols that represent hatred in paint on the wall. The wall is to be torn down on Thursday as a symbol of seeking social change and eradicating hatred. Tearing down the ten-foot high wall represents tearing down the walls that separate humans, according to organizers.

The Diversity Week schedule shows that the wall, which stands between the UC and Paul Meek Library, will remain intact until Thursday to remind students about the atrocities and acts of inhumanity that create barriers in the world.

On Monday many students were shocked by the slurs on the wall, but most did not take offense. Some students reacted negatively to the project, however. Several students questioned the motives of the project and stood by the wall to tell other students about their distaste for the wall.

Anthony Broussard, senior university studies major, said he was too distraught to attend class. “This is a disgrace to the university. They asked us to make hate from within with a two thousand dollar wall,” Broussard said as he paced the length of the wall. “Why generate a wall of hate when you could make a wall of peace and keep it up and not have to tear it down? I thought we were over all this (hatred).” Broussard accused Multicultural Affairs director Luther Mercer, Sigma Phi Epsilon and SGA of “sponsoring hate.”

Robert Kelley, sophomore geology major from Rutherford, also took offense to the wall and saw the painted slanders as a disgrace to minorities. “It sucks. They’re just rubbing it in our face,” Kelley said. “It’s a disgrace to have on our campus. No matter what the intentions are, it builds up a barrier more than what exists.”

Haley Simmons, treasurer for the Black Student Association, said the BSA endorsed the wall. In the BSA’s executive council meeting, there was dispute over which words should be put on the wall, but the final decision of BSA was to leave those disputed slurs on the wall. “Not to put them up would be denying the problem,” Simmons said. He also said BSA members and leadership helped paint words on the wall on Sunday evening. Simmons said, “I believe it might raise awareness with Diversity Week on campus.”

Several African-American students who took offense to the project stood around the wall for more than a half hour trying to understand why university officials would permit the Writing on the Wall project. One anonymous student loosened a brick, smashed it on the concrete and walked away.

The Writing on the Wall Project began in 2001 at the University of Utah with the university’s Human Issues Education Committee.