A swastika was found drawn on the wall of an elevator inside one of the residential colleges on campus at the University of Mississippi.

It was one of many incidents involving hate symbols or speech reported across the country in the wake of last week’s presidential election, and another blemish on the reputation of the university as a whole.

Minimizing the incident as anything less than what it is – hate-motivated vandalism – is pretty hard to do.

Invoking a symbol representative of the systematic genocide of more than 10 million people isn’t a joke nor is it something that should be normalized for the simple reason that it’s one of many related incidents happening throughout the nation.

It is not something that can be blown out of proportion. It is not something people should “get over.”

It is hate, plain and simple, and it is utterly reprehensible.