photo by: City of Lawrence screenshot

The Lawrence City Commission meeting on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, was interrupted by a group of public commenters who appeared via Zoom and shared hate speech, said racist and antisemitic slurs and showed Nazi imagery.

The Lawrence City Commission meeting on Tuesday was briefly derailed after multiple public commenters on Zoom engaged in racist and antisemitic hate speech and insulted another commenter.

Commissioners voted to enter a 10-minute recess about 40 minutes into Tuesday’s meeting after what appeared to be three commenters talked over another commenter, calling her a “f–king c–t” and berating her. The woman had spoken out after one of the other commenters spent their three-minute comment period decrying diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as “exclusion” and “stealing from white people.”

From there, multiple commenters began talking over one another and repeating racist and antisemitic slurs, and two of them showed images on their Zoom windows of Nazi imagery, including a swastika. One commenter said “The Holocaust never happened, but it should’ve” and another said “White f–king power; we’re sending the (N-words) back to Africa.”

After returning from recess, commissioners ended the general public comment period.