A black UCI student said someone put a racist letter in her backpack. Beverly White reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Friday, May 10, 2013.
Some 27,000 students of all races attend UC Irvine but an act of apparent racism is rattling the campus.
Freshman Charity Lyons said she found a note in her backpack reading - "Go Back to Africa Slave."
"At first I thought, 'Am I reading this wrong?'" she said. "Maybe I'm not in the right light.
She found a light post and read it again.
"At first I was very angry."
Lyons doesn't think the placement of the note was random.
"It might be a response to our protest against the LTD scandal that happened with the blackface video. I am a part of the BSU."
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Lyons refers to the Black Student Union stand against this video by the Asian fraternity Lambda Theta Delta.
In the fallout, the frat voluntarily suspended itself in the wake of pressure from black students.
The note Lyons received is now with campus police.
A spokeswoman said the university takes such reports "very seriously" and that it would be investigated.
UCI prides itself as one of Americas most diverse campuses.
Lyons said she shares in that pride too.
"I don't feel attacked," she said. "I feel angry by the ignorance that is being displayed here by such a prestigious university."
Thomas Parham, the vice president of student affairs, said there is "no place on this campus you can go where we do not celebrate and promote the notion of diversity that is here.
"Is it a issue with us?" he said. "The answer is no."
