The three incidents at the College occurred over a period of a week. On Oct. 17, a safe-place sticker on a professor's door that the Queer-Straight Alliance (QSA) put up was peeled and damaged. Homophobic graffiti was written on the walls of the second-floor men's room in Frost Library on Oct. 19. Finally, on Oct. 23 a derogatory term for male homosexuals was scrawled on a Bush/Cheney poster.
"It shows an undercurrent of homophobia among some students here," explained QSA member Amy Cheung '04.
"When it's noticed that there's a bias indicator involved, that's documented very carefully," said Wicks. She noted that these cases all had bias indicators and were not hate crimes.
"[A bias indicator] means that one of the elements in the incident is apparently motivated by bias-in this case towards sexual orientation," she said. Wicks said incidents with bias indicators cannot be considered hate crimes unless determined as such in court.
The police handed their evidence concerning the Bush/Cheney poster to the dean of students' office, which is now investigating the incident. However, this third incident appeared to be more politically motivated, according to Chief of Police John Carter.
The person or people who peeled the sticker and wrote the graffiti have not been found, which is partly why the mailing to students was sent out, according to Wicks and Carter.
"What we tried to do with that notice was to make folks aware that these things are happening and that it's not acceptable," said Carter. "When you use words like that, whether or not your intent is to hurt people, you do."
"The reason we put out the mailing was to promote awareness," said Wicks. "We really rely on people to put these cases together."
University of Massachusetts (UMass) Chief of Police John Luipold, who has dealt with incidents involving homophobic graffiti on the UMass campus this past month, also made a clear distinction between incidents with bias indicators and hate crimes.
"We review cases directed at individuals to see whether or not they have any bias indicators," said Luipold. "We review the situation with the [district attorney's] office in order to determine whether a hate crime statute would be considered."
The incidents at UMass involved anti-gay graffiti written on the door of a resident advisor.
Similar to the incidents that occurred at the College, Luipold said that no suspects could be found in the UMass case.