Woman Banned From CU Boulder Campus After Making Racist Threats
A student was trying to study when a woman he didn't know started calling him the n-word.
CU Boulder Police A student at the University of Colorado, Boulder campus was in a study room in the engineering center on Sunday evening when he was verbally assaulted by a woman calling him vile, racist names.
The student started filming an interaction he had with a woman who was hurling racial epithets at him and calling him a stalker. A professor eventually stepped in and asked the woman to leave. A student posted the video to Twitter and demanded that the school do something in response to the racist incident. By Tuesday. the school had identified her as Rebekah Krajacic, a 33-year-old woman who was not affiliated with the university in any way.
Who is Rebekah Krajacic? Read on for the shocking details.
1. Racist abuse of a student
On Sunday morning, a CU Boulder student posted a video of an interaction between a student and a white woman in a study room on campus. The video begins mid-way through the conversation, with the student seated at a desk and the woman standing in a doorway, holding a backpack. The student filming can be heard asking the woman to repeat the insult she just hurled at him. She repeated that he was a "f*cking [n-word]" several times and accused the student of stalking her. A man identified as a professor walks up to the woman and escorts her a short ways away and asks her to leave. Another young man tells the student doing the filming not to let the incident slide and they follow the professor into the hall to keep capturing the moment. The professor tells the woman she has to leave before he calls the campus police. She reiterates the stalking claims before leaving the area.
This video contains racist language.
2. Further explanation of the incident
The man who posted the video to Twitter clarified that he was not in the video and had not been present for the altercation but that he is a friend of one of the people involved. He then shared a follow-up from the students who had been there. The students involved said that they study in that area every week and arrived at their usual spot only to find the woman in question occupying the room. They left and went to an adjacent room that was empty. The students explained that although they didn't know the woman, she "profiled one of us as being part of a group of black men who have been 'stalking her.' She kept looking into our room and one of us asked her why she was looking at us," the students wrote. "She said because she assumed he had been stalking her for no other reason besides his skin color and we needed to leave her alone."
She finally packed up to leave but she kept being verbally abusive to the student. They said that moment was where the video begins.
The students explained the context of the situation.
3. The University president speaks out
Colorado University President Mark Kennedy quickly issued a statement about the incident, decrying the language Krajacic used. At the time of his statement, she hadn't yet been identified and he could not be sure whether she was a student or not. "I understand a verbal altercation occurred at CU Boulder between students that included racially hostile language," Kennedy wrote on Sunday. "I support the chancellor and the Office of Institutional Equity & Compliance in immediately launching an investigation to determine what transpired. We will learn more in the next few days, but I want to be clear in unequivocally condemning racist and threatening behaviors. Across all of its campuses, CU must support learning and working environments that foster respect for all students, faculty and staff."
4. A search for the racist woman
By Sunday evening, campus police put out a request for help in identifying the woman in the video. Based on the footage they had seen already, they thought she might be Rebekah Krajacic, who was not affiliated with the university. She was already known to campus police because she had been caught camping on the campus the previous month, according to the university website. On Monday, the CUPD said they were certain that the woman int he video was Krajacic but they were not having any luck locating her. However, they noted that other people on campus had reported to them that they had had negative interactions with Krajacic in the previous weeks.
5. Reaction from the campus administration
The Chancellor of the University commended the students for bringing the incident to light and for setting an example of speaking out against bigotry, according to the local NBC affiliate. "We talk a lot about shaping tomorrow's leaders, but sometimes tomorrow's leaders shaped us, and this is one of those times," Chancellor Phillip DiStefano said.
In a video he released ahead of his planned state of the campus address, he spoke further about the distressing events. "On Sunday, racist language was directed at two of our students by someone who we believe is not affiliated with our campus," DiStefano said. "And that was and is unacceptable. This racist incident reminds us of who we are as a campus community and the need for us to be vigilant, defending our values and each other on a daily basis. We are committed to an inclusive campus culture built upon the values of the Colorado creed, and incidents like Sunday's only reinforce the difficult work we have yet to do."
6. Strong student response
The Black Student Alliance of the CU Boulder campus posted a list of demands to the administration in the wake of the events. At the time of the original post, they were assuming that Krajacic was a student and they were asking for her public expulsion from the university. Upon learning that she was not a student or otherwise associated with the school, they amended their demands to have her banned from campus and to have the administration explicitly acknowledge the racist nature of the incident.
The BSA wants decisive action from the school.
It's not clear what will happen if Krajacic is found and talks to the university. At this time, there are no criminal charges against her.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.