Banners, pride flag stolen from Duke protesters

DURHAM (WTVD) -- Students who have been protesting for the last two weeks at Duke University say someone broke into their tent encampment and stole two banners and a rainbow pride flag.

The protesters allege widespread institutional racism and discrimination at the university and have asked Duke to increase the minimum wage for all campus workers to $15 an hour.

They say the theft happened around 4 a.m. Sunday morning. The banners have been recovered but the flag was still missing as of Sunday afternoon.

One of the students, junior Carolyn Yao, says was woken up by noises at her tent and then saw "someone in a gray shirt and baseball cap running in the distance."

After that she noticed the banners were gone. She said she found one banner at a bus stop and other in a trash can on the quad.

The students say the pride flag had been put up in response to a prior act of vandalism where earlier in the week a different pride flag had been cut down from a student's dorm window.

They claim these acts of theft and vandalism are part of a recent string of racist and homophobic acts at Duke, including a death threat against a freshman. The threat used a homophobic slur.