Graffiti are speech so what they say gets First Amendment protection -- even if it is "hate speech". But universities tend to think that they are exempt from the First Amendment and act accordingly:
"Villanova University officials are incensed by a rash of racist graffiti found in three residence halls over a six-day period, calling the acts "morally reprehensible" and antithetical to Christian teaching.
The graffiti was discovered between April 18 and 25 at Moriarity Hall, Sullivan Hall and Good Counsel Hall. The incidents at Moriarity and Good Counsel were anti-black, and a drawing of a swastika was found at Sullivan.
After a meeting at Moriarity, two students stepped forward and claimed responsibility for the graffiti there, some of which was directed at an African-American custodian.
Source
The students were punished but we are not told how. So the Leftist chant "hate speech is not free speech" once again gets implemented even though it has no standing in constitutional law.
Contrast this case with the complete inaction when racist graffiti at a California university were put up that were most probably the work of a Leftist.
Graffiti of any kind are vandalism and punishable accordingly but the energy and penalties evoked by these graffiti plainly came from their content.
One would hope that universities would be zealous defenders of free speech and they do indeed sometimes claim that they are (mainly when anti-Israel propaganda is being preached there) but we know from experience that the reality is generally the opposite. Only Leftist and Muslim speech is generally "free" there.
