The tree outside Class of 50 Lecture Hall, a popular gathering place for many black students, was vandalized earlier this month.

After recent incidents that brought racial tensions to the surface, Purdue's top diversity official is striving to promote respectful dialogue among students.

Alysa Rollock serves as Purdue vice president for ethics and compliance and reports directly to Purdue president France Córdova on matters ranging from affirmative action to diversity.

Rollock started her new position Nov. 3, just one day before an image of male genitalia and a derogatory message about President-elect Barack Obama appeared on a tree that serves as a gathering place for members of Purdue's black and Latino communities.

Rollock said she has been meeting with a number of students who felt distressed by the graffiti.

"We want to model what a wonderful democracy we have and the right we have to exercise free speech," Rollock said of the University. "We can model that without having it escalate into disrespectful speech."

Whether the graffiti on the tree was racially motivated or just political, Rollock said, is impossible to know.

"That is only in the mind of the person who perpetrated the acts," Rollock said. "But we certainly as a university community want to have respectful dialogue across the spectrum to find ways and help each other find ways to communicate appropriately."

Rollock said she cannot speak about other events that occurred off campus, such as the Triple XXX incident in which employees asked a group of black patrons to leave the restaurant after an altercation.

"Certainly we hope students have positive experiences in the community, but this is an experience that did not involve the University so we will leave it to the police and Triple XXX and the parties involved to resolve that matter."

Mike Ebert, a junior in the College of Consumer and Family Sciences, said racism should not be tolerated but is hard to completely eradicate.

"People will do what they want," Ebert said. "If someone feels strongly about something, they'll keep doing it."

Ebert said the graffiti could be racially motivated, but there is also a political aspect as well.

"Me and three of the guys in my house wonder if it were McCain who won and someone wrote that, would it be seen as the same thing or just some liberal?"

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