After the beheading of a graduate student at Virginia Tech last month, the university's president is chiding those who have made ethnically insensitive remarks about the suspect, a Chinese student.
In an open letter to the campus, President Charles W. Steger urged students and others not to condemn all Asians.
Steger wrote the letter in response to what he called "some troubling commentary directed to the university leadership via e-mail, on blogs or in letters to the editor."
Visitors to the Web sites occasionally note that the student who fatally shot 32 people on campus on April 16, 2007, was of Korean descent.
"Virginia Tech is an open and accepting community including many races, ethnicities, and cultures from around the world," Steger wrote in an e-mail sent out Tuesday night. "We believe firmly that this diversity enriches the educational experience of all of our students. There is no evidence to suggest this death was in any way ethnically motivated."
Graduate student Haiyang Zhu, 25, is charged with firstdegree murder in the Jan. 21 beheading of fellow graduate student Xin Yang, 22. Zhu is from China, as was Yang.
Steger singled out no particular forum for criticism, but numerous chat rooms and blogs feature comments ranging from "What the hell is up with the Asian people there?" to "Avoid nutty Asian males."
On the Web site of Tech's student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, one parent wrote that she is advising her daughters at Tech to avoid Asian friends. Other commenters drew conclusions about all Asians from Zhu's behavior. Those comments, in turn, elicited accusations of bigotry.
In his letter, Steger noted that the international student community at Tech "has an outstanding law-abiding history and reputation."
"Compared to their percent of the student body," Steger continued, "our international students generally are extremely underrepresented in terms of offenses brought to the university's judicial system.
"Nationally, the Bureau of Justice statistics point out that Asians are 10 times less likely to commit homicide than whites in the United States. We reject any suggestions that condemn an entire class of people, particularly those with a strong law-abiding reputation on our campus."
Nearly 27,600 students study on Tech's Blacksburg campus, among whom about 1,800 are Asian and more than 2,000 others are from foreign countries.
Student Shouwen Lai, president of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Tech, declined to comment on the letter, saying he is prohibited by university policy. He referred all questions to Kim Beisecker, director of the Cranwell International Center at Tech. Beisecker did not return messages.
One Asian student, though, said she has noticed no increased prejudice among her classmates in the days since the beheading.
"They're very nice to me," said civil engineering major Zhoujin Wang of Fairfax.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com.
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