For the second time this school year, a noose was found hanging from a tree at Stanford University, ABC News reports.
A hate crimes investigation has been launched at Stanford after students discovered a noose outside of a residence hall on Sunday (May 8). This comes less than six months after students reported a noose hanging from a tree on a campus walking trail, and it is the third noose spotted at Stanford in the past four years.
A joint statement from the school's vice provost for student affairs and institutional equity said, "We cannot state strongly enough that a noose is a reprehensible symbol of anti-Black racism and violence that will not be tolerated on our campus."
Provosts Susie Brubaker-Cole and Patrick Dunkley continued, "As a community, we must stand united against such conduct and those who perpetrate it."
According to school officials, campus police launched the hate crimes investigation immediately after the noose was reported to Stanford's Department of Public Safety. The investigation included interviewing maintenance staff, students, and school staff in an effort to figure out the exact time frame of the incident and identify suspects, the university's Protected Identity Harm Reporting website said.
It is unknown if campus security videos caught the noose hanging on tape, ABC News reports. As of Tuesday (May 10), no arrests have been made for Sunday's incident or the past three hate crimes.
Brubaker-Cole and Dunkley thanked the people who reported the hate crime.
"We are sharing this message with the full university community so that everyone is informed and we can move forward as one committed to ending anti-Black racism," Brubaker-Cole and Dunkley said in their joint statement.
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