WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College on Monday reported that the school's Soldier's Monument on Main Street was defaced with apparent white supremacist graffiti.

 

President Maud Mandel sent an email to the college community reporting that a local resident reported to the school the presence of a Confederate flag and the painted word "Rebel" on the base of the Civil War statue, located outside the school's Griffin Hall.

 

"The Confederate flag and the word 'Rebel' are commonly used as symbols by white supremacists and other extremist factions," Mandel wrote. "The appearance of those marks is more evidence that we live in a world where people hold racist and otherwise hateful ideas."

 

Mandel reported that a Williams staff person removed as much of the graffiti as possible and covered the "remaining traces" until the stone could be more thoroughly scrubbed.

 

The college's Campus Safety Services department is investigating the incident and has referred it to the Williamstown Police Department, Mandel wrote.

 

Anyone with information can contact Williams College CSS at 413-597-4444.

 

"When someone defaces our campus — our own home — with symbols of those ideologies, it becomes especially personal," Mandel wrote. "I will join you all in defending the right of every member of this community to live and work here free of bias or intimidation."

 

The Williams Soldier's Monument was dedicated in 1868 to the memory of alumni who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

 

The report of its desecration came on the same day a group of Williamstown residents at the other end of Main Street installed 50 lawn signs on the Field Park rotary acknowledging the town's and college's presence on the homeland of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.

 

An iBerkshires.com Facebook post referencing the "50 Mohican Reminders" installation generated several derisive comments on Monday morning.