WashU Votes mural with the vandalism. (Photo courtesy of Mason Sutton)

An underpass mural by WashU Votes advocating for and informing passersby of how to register to vote was defaced by graffiti of the acronym “MAGA,” an abbreviation for the Make America Great Again movement, the week of Sept. 21. 

It’s currently unknown who plastered the MAGA phrasing atop the WashU Votes artwork. The Washington University Police Department referred the case to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards after looking into the graffiti. 

“It is safe to assume that WashU PD believes a student may have violated the Student Conduct Code,” wrote Chief Angela Coonce in an email comment to Student Life. 

WashU Votes, a cornerstone organization within the Gephardt Institute, along with the Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition, aims to promote democracy by encouraging students to vote. The student-run organization is firmly non-partisan, with a Statement of Nonpartisanship gracing many of their website’s footers and encouraging both left and right-leaning people to vote. 

WashU Votes is also attuned to student culture, with a history of passing out incentives like free food to encourage voter participation. The organization declined Student Life’s request for an interview or comment on the graffiti due to their non-partisan nature.

Possibly due to WashU Votes’ efforts in voter registration, WashU saw an almost 40% increase in voter participation in 2024 compared to the 2020 presidential race. Both in 2016 and 2024, WashU students who supported Trump and the Make America Great Again movement were outnumbered by supporters of Democratic candidates.  

As the primary real estate for clubs to advertise, the South 40 underpass itself is well known among WashU undergraduates. It has been a place of visual activism across a wide range of social issues, and the recent defacement of WashU Votes’ mural is not the first time underpass paintings have been a target of vandalism. 

In December 2022, in response to a WU College Republicans event hosting a speaker who, among other views, advocates that trans women not compete in female sports, the underpass was filled with pro-trans rights messages and photos of deceased trans individuals. Amala Ekpunobi, the aforementioned speaker, is a podcaster associated with nonprofit conservative media producer PragerU.

The year prior, in December 2021, a Black history mural was vandalized by white supremacists supporting the white nationalist organization the Patriot Front. 

Public outcry paired with the scope of the graffiti warranted multiple official communications from WashU’s administration. Chancellor Andrew Martin; then-Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Administrative Officer, Shantay Bolton; then-Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Anna “Dr. G” Gonzalez; and then-Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Beverly Wendland together vehemently condemned the destroying of the mural, and later updated the WashU community on WUPD’s work in investigating the act. 

The underpass, like much of the WashU campus, is open to the St. Louis public, and the suspected vandalist in the Black history mural case was found to be unaffiliated with WashU in any way.