By Associated Press
Tuscaloosa, AL – Marsha L. Houston, a professor at the University of Alabama, was so happy Barack Obama won the presidency that she put up a poster of the soon-to-be first family on her office door after the election.
First, someone ripped down the poster. When she put up another, someone scrawled a racial slur on it along with a death threat against the first African-American to win the White House.
"It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston, who is black, said in an interview Thursday.
The slur and threat that defaced Houston's poster was but one of a string of racist taunts and menacing on U.S. campuses in the wake of Obama's historic victory, which apparently pulled the hood off old-fashioned hate.
Juicycampus.com, a Web site where students from some 500 schools nationwide post comments anonymously, is littered with hundreds of racist rants and death threats toward Obama, whom exit polls showed was favored by young voters by a 2-1 margin over Republican John McCain.
Nancy Riffe, a faculty member at Alabama, was so incensed that she posted a message on the site chastising university students.
"I think that what we're seeing is an escalation of this sort of thing since the election," Riffe said in an interview. "Instead of hiding behind white hoods, they're hiding behind the Internet."
A university administrator said any student found responsible for the vandalism could face a reprimand or suspension.
"That is not behavior we expect of our students or behavior we condone," said Mark Nelson, vice president of student affairs. Nelson was one of two administrators who sent a university-wide e-mail discouraging similar acts.
Many campuses haven't been caught up in the wave of racism. At Georgia State University in Atlanta, Celia Willis of the campus Democratic club said she's only seen support for Obama since the election. At the University of Florida, campus Democratic leader Zach Moller said he hasn't heard of any racist reaction to the election.
Officials at Alabama say the university police referred the racist vandalism to federal agents.
Roy Sexton, the agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service in Birmingham, said the agency couldn't comment on any investigation.
"We're obviously concerned with anything that might pose a threat," he said.