One student found a piece of paper with a racial slur on his car windshield. Another discovered a note that read "Go back to Africa" tucked into her backpack. And a third received this vile message on her car: "Glad you are leaving soon. One less [N-word] this school has to deal with … You have spoken up too much … Shut up or I will shut you up."

A rash of those kinds of racist incidents this school year prompted an estimated 500 St. Olaf College students to rightly say "Enough!" In demonstrations over the past several days, students rallied against racism and hate at the Northfield, Minn., campus.

One black student who had received one of the notes told the crowd that he no longer felt safe or welcome at the school. "The only thing I could think was … what can I do to stop this from happening to the next person?" said junior Don Williams.

After a day of listening to painful stories, passionate speeches and hours of talks between students and the administration, St. Olaf President David R. Anderson signed off on some student demands, including creating an autonomous task force to examine the issues.

"The demands reflect a whole set of concerns that students have about their experience at the college and the environment it provides. Let's get them named, let's talk about how they can be addressed," Anderson said. "Let's find a way to move forward together."

White students outnumber minorities 4-1 at St. Olaf, which has a total enrollment of about 3,000, according to the school's website. St. Olaf is not alone in dealing with racism — it's just the most recent Minnesota college to address the issue. In November, a racial epithet was scrawled on a sidewalk at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. And late last year, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education said in its 2016 annual report that it received 198 complaints related to racial harassment at colleges and universities across the country.

Wherever hate speech occurs, fair-minded people must speak up. Whether directed at a Jewish center, a Muslim mosque or students of color, the best way for communities to respond is to stand together in solidarity. Like the hundreds of St. Olaf students who did the right thing, all Minnesotans should call out racism and discrimination, take collective action against bias and let the haters know they will not be tolerated.