Rivals tag Whig Hall with graffiti
Correction appendedWhig Hall was vandalized with graffiti Sunday night in an apparent attempt by Rutgers students to revive the school's once-contentious rivalry with Princeton.Public Safety officers discovered the writing on the western wall of the 113-year-old home to the University's debating society around midnight during a routine campus patrol.Scribbled in bright red spray paint, the message read, "WE WANT A GAME 1869 RUTGERS BB2," a reference to Rutgers' victory over Princeton in the first-ever intercollegiate football game.Facilities department workers cleaned the graffiti late Monday afternoon.University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said that Public Safety spotted the marks on Whig Hall before noticing students on Cannon Green in front of the building.The students, who Cliatt identified as Princetonians, were near the Revolutionary War cannon that has baited the Rutgers-Princeton rivalry for more than 150 years.Cliatt said the officers "encountered students respraying the cannon black ... to cover over the red sprayed there by Rutgers." The students said they had not witnessed anyone defacing Whig Hall or the cannon, and Public Safety could find no other witnesses.She added that Public Safety's investigation is ongoing, though the incident is "very straightforward," with no known witnesses.Whig Hall is home to the Whig-Cliosophic Society, an umbrella organization for student political groups including Princeton Model Congress and the International Relations Council.Whig-Clio computing coordinator George Lan '09 said he notified other society officers after spying the graffiti on his way to class from his dorm room in Blair Hall.