MISSION VIEJO : Flyers With Racial Slurs Denounced

Saddleback College officials have condemned flyers containing racial slurs that were received by two African-American students running for homecoming king and queen.

Ricc Waddell, president of the campus Black United Students, announced Thursday that he is withdrawing from the contest, while Letitia Robbins, vice president of the group, said she is considering dropping out of the race.

“I’m mentally burned out from this,” Waddell said.

Robbins asked: “Do you want to represent a school where someone could feel this way?”

More than 100 students and faculty members crowded into an Associated Student Government meeting Thursday to express their anger and discuss how to prevent future incidents of racial intolerance, which have plagued the campus in the past.

“This time I am scared,” said a tearful Jennifer Watler, an ASG member. “What’s a person of color to do? . . . I don’t know what to do.”

Waddell, 23, said he found the flyer, which included slurs aimed at his bid to be homecoming king, Tuesday in his student government mailbox.

Robbins, 19, said she received a similar flyer made up of pasted letters in her campus mailbox about two weeks earlier.

Waddell said he received a letter on campus last March that mentioned two civil rights figures and the dates they were murdered. It read, “Malcolm X ‘65, Martin Luther King, ‘68, Brother Ricc ’93.”

In an open letter to the 21,000-student campus, Everett Brewer, vice president for instruction and acting president, said the administration would take “very strong measures” if those responsible for the flyers are discovered.

“This college strives to be truly a ‘community’ college and promotes an open atmosphere where all individuals and cultures are welcome and treated with full respect,” Brewer said in the letter. “Incidents such as this demean our purpose and are a direct insult to all of us.”

Administrators asked students with information about the incident to contact Brewer, affirmative action director Linda Newell, vice president of student services Vern Hodge or the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

Also, the campus police have been interviewing students in connection with the incident.

Rusty Kennedy, head of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, pledged during the meeting Thursday to help college officials create a multicultural task force to develop a plan dealing with racial problems.

Waddell demanded that college officials first expand Latino, Asian-American, African-American and American Indian study programs.

College administrators have also turned over information on the incidents to the Sheriff’s Department.