The new recruiting ground for hate groups : College Campuses

White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in America had a goal for 2017: Leave the virtual confines of online forums and social media platforms and occupy physical space. It was an objective they shared often and freely in interviews and online postings. They wanted to serve notice that their movement was a force to be reckoned with and its adherents were not simply shadowy Internet lurkers but real people — most of them young and male — who were not afraid to show their faces or proclaim their messages
On campuses large and small, urban and rural, the racist far-right made its presence felt like never before with leaflets and banners warning of threats to white supremacy. Swastikas were scribbled on walls of Jewish campus organizations. Bananas were left in front of the dorm rooms of black students.
The Anti-Defamation League found that in the past 15 months, organizations such as the Traditionalist Worker Party, Identity Evropa, American Renaissance and Vanguard America directed campaigns at more than 200 college campuses in 42 states. The pace of their provocations has only accelerated in recent months. The civil rights group counted 140 reported incidents — displays of organized racist activity — from Sept. 1 through Dec. 18. For the same period the year before, 41 incidents were reported

“It’s striking a blow directly at the heart of our foes,” said Matthew Heimbach, founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party, a far-right organization that seeks a whites-only nation state and has been labeled a hate group for its anti-Jewish and homophobic stances and its opposition to racial mixing. “It lets them know that there are people that are radically opposed to them, that aren’t afraid of them, that will challenge them. It shakes their thought that they’ve got the campus environment locked down and lets them know that people who oppose them go to their school or are a part of their local community.” College campuses, Heimbach said, are ideal for recruiting members and gaining publicity because the presence of the hate groups inevitably creates an outcry on campus and in the community. He said the ranks of his organization have tripled over the past year from 500 to 1,500 members, although The Washington Post could not independently verify that assertion