Ithaca College President Shirley Collado penned a statement to the college community condemning the white supremacist violence over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Collado encouraged students to stand in solidarity with the marginalized communities that were made to feel dehumanized by the white nationalist protests August 11–12 . A white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others.

“The weekend’s events are yet another painful reminder that forces of hatred have resurged with vigor in American society, and that the ideology underpinning those forces endorses and enables violence in many forms,” Collado said. “The events also serve as yet another reminder that institutions of higher education, far from being insulated from these dynamics, often become the very stages upon which deep conflict over them plays out and reverberates nationally.”

The Aug. 12 protests were organized to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park. The white nationalists were met with resistance from counterprotesters arguing the statue glorifies the Confederate cause of white supremacy in defending slavery.

Other college presidents, including Cornell University President Martha Pollack, also condemned white supremacy following the events in Charlottesville.