If there's anything positive that can be drawn from several recent race-related incidents on the Chico State University campus, it's the community's reaction to them.

University President Paul Zingg, student leaders, faculty members and a diverse lot of students have strongly and unequivocally stated such attitudes and offenses are not welcome on campus or in the community. Roughly 300 students attended a rally on campus where speakers said bigotry and hatred are more common on campus than people realize.

Bigotry takes many forms, and the worst we can do is dismiss any of it as mean-spirited yet harmless. Appallingly, the two young men who were arraigned in Butte County court declared that while they did leave racist graffiti at a university dormitory, they were not racist.

Uh, sure.

Timothy Simmons, 21, and Deric James Braito, 22, scrawled racial slurs and swastikas with permanent marking pens on six doors at the Whitney Hall dormitory and on a poster promoting "Diversity Week." As a testament to the mental capacity of the suspects, they also left their address at the site in the same ink and handwriting, inviting girls to come and smoke marijuana and have sex at their Nord Avenue apartment. In other words, it wasn't tough for the police to track down the suspects.

Braito is the same brainiac who allegedly threatened to send anthrax to a Chico weekly newspaper because it charged for "personals" ads ("Fool seeks companionship"?). When investigators were digging into that crime, they allegedly found child pornography on his computer. He faces charges in both incidents.

It would be easy to dismiss the Whitney Hall incident as just a couple of dolts causing a problem that wasn't reflective of the whole community, but two incidents preceded it. Racially and sexually offensive phrases were found on three campus racquetball courts last month, and a black student attending a basketball game returned to his car to find his tires slashed and racist comments spray-painted on his vehicle. There's nothing linking Simmons and Braito to the other two incidents.

The troubling incidents don't stop there. Students at the campus rally said hate speech occurs too often, in part because of Chico's lack of diversity. On a supposedly enlightened campus, students are taunted because of their race, gender, sexuality and religion.

Nobody should pretend that it's just "kids being kids." It's gratifying to see the District Attorney's Office aggressively prosecuting the crimes. Everybody can help stamp out the problem. Victims should report all incidents of racist and threatening behavior, and onlookers should denounce all hate speech, even casual conversation using offensive terms. The problem will grow unless we make it disappear.