A white supremacist group just made their presence known at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in a big way. The students at the university, who had reportedly returned from campus after a long holiday break, had their evenings interrupted by a group of people chanting racist remarks and projecting hate symbols on a campus building.
Around 5 p.m. Monday, UW-Whitewater campus police received reports about a group of four people causing a ruckus outside the Knilans residence hall, according to a statement from the school Chancellor Corey A. King. The disturbance they caused was captured on video by a witness. The group appeared to be men dressed in black and red. They projected a series of phrases including “Tread or Die” and “Blood Tribe” and the image of a swastika. In the video, the group is heard chanting “We are everywhere. There will be blood, blood, blood!” And also “white men built this!”
“On this first day of the new semester, I ask all of us to reaffirm our commitment to our core values and not let the actions of an outside group that seeks to incite hate, division and fear take us off course,” the chancellor said in response to the mess. “The actions of the group last night are abhorrent and go against our core values. We reject hate in all its forms.”
King said the police responded quickly to the scene but the group had already vanished. Neither video surveillance sightings nor any more witness spottings were reported for the remainder of the evening. King asserted the group had no affiliation with the school whatsoever but said their actions are consistent with that of a group that had been visiting other campuses to wreak havoc.
Their actions also line up with that of the “Blood Tribe” described by the Anti-Defamation League as a group embracing neo-Nazi and “white people are superior” ideologies. The group was founded by Christopher Pohlhaus, who built a white supremacist encampment in 2022 and then led a protest crashing a drag queen story time event in Ohio in 2023. At that event, a “there will be blood” banner was raised, the organization noted.
Since the incident, the presence of police patrol has increased on campus and students are asked to come forward with anymore information about the incident. Unfortunately, the UW-Whitetaker students weren’t the only ones to be ambushed by a racist, antisemitic tirade—particularly in light of the Isreal-Gaza war.
So many campuses have been pummeled by these incidents and attacks in the U.S. Department of Education had to open a federal probe in November to investigate the pattern of campuses becoming hot spots for hate.