Reports of stickers around campus representing the alt-right organization Identity Evropa have surfaced in the past few weeks.
The stickers have reportedly been spotted inside Dwinelle Hall, in the parking lot behind Dwinelle and near Zellerbach Hall. Most recently, photos of a campus vehicle with the sticker on its bumper garnered attention on the internet Saturday, but the sticker has since been removed.
“Facilities services is looking into the matter,” said campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore in an email. “At this point, however, we have no information that indicates a staff member placed the sticker on the vehicle. The sticker has been removed.”
Identity Evropa is a rising alt-right group that identifies as “a generation of awakened Europeans who have discovered that (they) are part of the great peoples,” according to the organization’s website. In May 2016, Identity Evropa founder Nathan Damigo visited UC Berkeley to interview students about race for the YouTube channel Red Ice.
Since appearing on campus last year, Damigo was on campus again during President Donald Trump’s inauguration to interview members of the Berkeley College Republicans for the Red Ice channel. Damigo is a Bay Area local who attends California State University Stanislaus.
Campus junior Neil Lawrence, a former Daily Californian columnist and an activist who participated in the Milo Yiannopoulos demonstrations in February, said he has seen the stickers around campus. According to Lawrence, when he sees a sticker, he documents its location and then removes it. Lawrence said neo-Nazi organizations sometimes put razors behind their posters to avoid removal, but confirmed that the Identity Evropa stickers are safely removable.
According to the Identity Evropa website, stickers are given to those who donate to the organization.
BCR treasurer David Craig emphasized in an email that BCR condemns racism and fascism in all forms, stating that both belong “on the ash heap of history.” Additionally, Craig addressed the campus’s responsibility in keeping racism off campus.
“If work vehicles are not allowed to have non-sanctioned bumper stickers, this is a case of either neglected enforcement or vandalism,” Craig said in an email. “If work vehicles are allowed bumper stickers, the university should contemplate a rules change.”
