MISSOULA, Mont. – About 50 people attended a town hall meeting at the University of Montana to discuss fallout from several incidents that involved racial discrimination.

Among the events that spurred the meeting included a September incident in which stickers were found posted to the doors of the campus’ Payne Family Native American Center and the International Student Center building. The stickers promoted a white supremacist group and its website.

“The meeting is to give a voice to these issues,” said Jamar Galbreath, director of the University Center Diversity Planning Committee, which organized the event. The meeting was designed to create a communal effort to eradicate further incidents, Galbreath said.

Exposing issues and striking them at the heart starts with dialogue, Galbreath said.

Following his initial address, participants then split into four small groups to engage in open, respectful discussions. The groups sat in circles and within each group they shared and listened to each other’s stories.

“It’s an everyday thing,” said Lily Gervais, in one of the groups. She spoke of an experience she had in a grocery store where she was at the checkout stand when the sales clerk assumed she was paying with food stamps because she is Native American.

Another student chimed in with a story concerning her friend who lives on campus and was targeted anonymously by someone who had left slanderous messages on her dorm room door. Gervais and the rest of the group felt that discrimination is found in blatant comments that are intended to be hateful and then in subtle unconscious actions that reflect a lack of knowledge.

Dave Beck, a professor for 11 years at the University of Montana and chair of Native American Studies program, said incidents of incivility have gotten worse.

“We need to think in terms of solutions,” Beck said.

Suggestions for various solutions began to flow within the group. Several people in the group said the campus and community needs a zero tolerance for bigotry. Students and community members should be prepared to confront discrimination on small scales, this could help eradicate larger issues, the group said.

Hazing or harassment incidents affecting an individual directly or another person are important to report, participants said.

The program on campus that handles reports of discriminating nature is Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and is directed by Lucy T. France.

“When something happens it affects all of us,” said Lucy T. France, director of the UM Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action office. She addressed the entire town hall, the participants, sitting in their groups, quietly agreed.