On Sunday evening a Gallatin sophomore found the words “Hasta Luego Dreamers” written with black marker on a poster in a bathroom in the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. The message translates to “Goodbye Dreamers” and appears to be directed toward recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program.

The derogatory statement was written over a flier promoting flu shots in one of the library restroom stalls. Kevin Weiskirch was the first student to report seeing the message.

“My phone died right as I took the picture, otherwise I would have reported it to [NYU] Public Safety right away,” Weiskirch said. “Later on I sent it to my friend Sophie who wrote about it for NYU Local and from there a student senator reached out to me. I assume he reported it but I’m not sure.”  

NYU’s Dream Team addressed the issue on Monday morning on their Facebook page.

“There is no place for this type of public display of hatred and intolerance on our campus,” Dream Team said in a Facebook message to WSN. “There is no place for this type of public display of hatred and intolerance on our campus, in our city or in our country.”

NYU Dream quickly reached out to the Incarceration to Education Coalition, a student club on campus that combats university discrimination against formerly incarcerated people, because they share similar values. The two will co-host a protest in the Kimmel Center for University Life today at 12 p.m.

This all comes one month after the deferral of President Donald Trump’s informal announcement to end the DACA program implemented under former President Barack Obama. On the day of Trump’s announcement, protesters from NYU Dream, the NYU Asian Pacific American Coalition and NYU Sanctuary filled Kimmel to voice their collective disapproval.

In a statement to WSN, the IEC voiced its disapproval of the message found in the library.

“We find the anti-immigrant message written in Bobst unacceptable and sadly not unprecedented,” the IEC said. “This is another iteration of the unwarranted violence undocumented students face in their daily lives, albeit an especially vile one.”

WSN could not independently confirm who wrote the words in the Bobst bathroom. Two weeks earlier, however, a similar event occurred when a flyer for white nationalist group Identity Evropa was found on the second floor of Kimmel.

NYU Dream said it intends to prioritize the voices of those who the club feels are directly affected by racial slurs at the Tuesday protest.

“It is important for people to realize that even though we claim to be a progressive institution, there’s still racism on our campus,” Weiskirch said. “It’s something that we need to talk about, not just in abstraction, like how it occurs in other parts of the [United States], but we need to address the fact that racism is still very present throughout more liberal spaces as well.”

Email Miranda Levingston and Mack DeGeurin at [email protected].