The “Hate Wall” Initiative to Eradicate and Dismantle Discrimination in Higher Education: Lessons Learned from the Well-Intended Case Gone Awry!

Deeply rooted prejudices and hatred of others based on people’s ethnic background, disabilities, or religious affiliations are the realities of every society. To allow students, faculty, and staff on campus to de-stress by metaphorically destroying experienced hate, the Diversity Student Council of Nova Southeastern University built a “Hate Wall” so everyone can write negative biases they have heard to then dismantle it physically and symbolically. During the day, people wrote comments on the wall, and some were antisemitic regarding the Jewish community. Within a few hours, it turned into a publicity failure while deeply stressing many. Using Allport’s Contact Hypothesis theory, this study’s key findings focus on what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening in the future. A project that was meant to create a more inclusive campus resulted in much negative publicity and stress among some students, faculty, staff, parents, and academic administrators. This case reviews the “Hate Wall” purpose, and how the project went awry. As an original article, this case adds new insights to existing literature on diversity management, crisis communication, and to the creation and maintenance of inclusive organizational culture. Suggestions, recommendations, and implications for the creation of inclusionary decision-making and diverse teams are presented. Discussion questions are provided to reflect on what could be done better in future projects.