A California student recounted how his freshman experience at a private Catholic college was marred by a number of troubling racist incidents that the school and local police are now investigating as hate crimes.

The student, who was only identified as David by the local news outlet KGO, started attending Saint Mary’s College of California in the Bay Area city of Moraga last fall.

But by the spring semester, he was texting his parents asking if he could come home more often. He told them that other students had been standing outside his dorm room shouting profanities and racial slurs, including the N-word. He even recorded part of one outburst while he stood inside his room in a video obtained by KGO.

“Let’s imagine for a moment that it’s your child behind that door, hearing ‘kill the n-word,’” David’s father, James Brickley, said. “Imagine how he felt — his fear.”

David reported the incident to resident assistants and campus advisers, but said they took little action to address the issues.

“I was promised that things were going to change,” David said. “And nothing happened.”

One day, things escalated when he went to the communal bathroom on his dorm floor and saw the threat, “Kill n—s,” carved on the inside of a bathroom door.

“I remember I was rushing to my computer science class,” David said. “I was just using the restroom, looked up, and there it was, clear as day, written in the restroom. It was almost surreal for me.”

After a similar racial threat was discovered in another dorm bathroom, the university issued a campus-wide alert, warning students, staff, and faculty of “a hate crime involving property damage, threatening language, and racial slurs written in two restrooms.”

Moraga police are now investigating the incidents as hate crimes.

“I find myself being at home and indoors more and more,” David said. “Because I just don’t feel safe on campus.”

After learning of the campus response, David’s parents set up a meeting with the school’s president, Roger Thompson, but were shocked when they heard his advice.

“He said we should think about moving David out of the school,” David’s mother, Tia Hunnicutt, said. “That was his response to a toxic culture was to have David leave and let the toxic culture persist. That was his solution to a hate crime.”

A university spokesperson told KGO that the president offered David the option to move to a different dorm and also “expressed understanding should the parents wish for their student to transfer.” David declined to move dorms or withdraw from the school.

“Why aren’t the perpetrators in these crimes the ones that are kicked out of school?” Brickley said. “Make it a safer and happier environment for everybody.”

In a statement, St. Mary’s said that school officials are working to address the incidents with mandatory resident hall meetings, additional campus patrols, more resources to support students, and efforts to raise awareness of bias response and reporting mechanisms.

“I think that’s a beautiful, very lawyerly statement they’ve crafted. But I heard nothing concrete in terms of what steps they are actually taking,” Hunnicutt said.

For David’s parents, the school’s actions aren’t enough. They’re demanding that the college enforce a zero-tolerance policy for racism, mandate anti-bias training for students, and provide better support for victims.

However, the school hasn’t responded to their demands or email communication for several weeks. They said the last email they received from university officials was on April 4.

School officials and local police have yet to locate, identify, arrest, or discipline the culprits responsible for the hate incidents.

‘That Was His Solution to a Hate Crime’: California Students Allegedly Threatened Black Student and Used Racial Slurs. President Told Him to Leave School or Move Out, Outraged Parent Says