Angry progressives at the University of California San Diego demanded photos of Kate Steinle be removed from campus.
Gregory Lu hung up 150 posters of the young woman who was murdered by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco in 2015 with a caption that read: “She had dreams too.”
It wasn’t long before the Office for the Prevention of Harassment & Discrimination gave Lu a call, however, asking for a meeting.
“Our office received an online incident report and I would like to schedule a time to speak with you about it,” an investigator wrote to Lu in the email, reported The College Fix. “Are you free this week by phone or in person.”
Lu said he replied seeking more information about the meeting, which has yet to take place, and has been in contact with an attorney.
Lu added he feels certain the bias complaint stems from the Steinle posters, noting as he put them up a couple students followed him around and watched his every move. The day after Lu hung the posters, all of them had been taken down, he added.
The same day Lu was contacted by the bias office, the UC San Diego College Democrats had also called the posters “racist propaganda” targeting the “undocumented community” in a statement posted on their Facebook page. It went on to describe the posters as “displays of hate.” (The College Fix)
Lu told The College Fix he believes his free speech is being threatened.
“It’s a threat [the bias office’s probe] because conservatives on this campus already have a hard time,” Lu said. “For this to happen — it’s almost a violation of our free speech rights.”
“We have had a bunch of left-wing posters go up all the time,” he added. “So the argument they might make is, ‘This is a political poster, we don’t want you to put it up’ is a nonsensical argument because leftists put up posters all the time.”
Lu’s experience of having the posters ripped down shortly after putting them up was typical at colleges across the West Coast. The Steinle photos, a project of RIght Wing West, of which Lu is a member, had members hang the same posters at other schools, but they were torn down at the University of Washington, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UCLA, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Eastern Washington University, Washington State and San Diego State.
Lu said he was happy to take part in the group’s activism project.
“I wanted to do this because I wanted to put forth the alternative narrative,” he said. “On a college campus the narrative is pretty leftwing. We wanted to put something up that said, ‘We denounce the verdict, we want to shine light upon this issue.'”