Dear U.S. and Canadian Colleges,

Hate has no place in modern society, let alone on campus. It is an unfortunate artifact of a less-enlightened era in which small-minded people took advantage of raw emotion to drive support for their own political and socio-economic advantage and hegemony while restraining society from advancing for the common good of all. Today, hate is scorned and shamed as a distasteful weapon of oppression best relegated to the dustbin of history. Yet it still has proponents, people who continue an ignominious practice of wearing masks to intimidate, threaten, coerce, and even engage in acts of discrimination and violence targeting not just minority communities but the shared values that underpin our democracy.

Our society, both through our government and our private institutions like this university, has a compelling interest in furthering public safety and protecting our legal rights to be free of discrimination. When we are prevented from engaging in activities of daily living, utilizing public spaces, and exercising our basic Constitutional rights by masked hatemongers, action is required. We need to unmask the hate and drive it out of our college campuses and of our streets in the same way an earlier generation of civil rights heroes drove off the hooded scourge of the Ku Klux Klan..

On college campuses, the last year has seen an explosion in the use of disguise to commit acts of oppression and even outright violence. To be clear, disguise has not been used to engage in any sort of protected speech, but rather to engage in conduct - either illegal or prohibited by conduct rules - that has had the effect of terrorizing innocent students who want nothing more than to partake in the college experience without discrimination, intimidation, harassment, or bullying. It does not matter whether the people who engage in this conduct wear disguise in order to avoid being identified or to appear more menacing; the net effect is the deprivation of the rights of others. This must stop. WE MUST UNMASK THE HATE.

We, the undersigned, as students, parents, and Americans committed to equality, justice, and domestic tranquility that promotes the general welfare of all and secures the blessings of our liberties to ourselves and generations to come, call on you to act now to protect the safety and the legal rights of our students by imposing clear regulations, such as the one below, prohibiting the wearing of masks or other disguises on campus.