During the Tailgating for Change event before the game against ECU, several McCain supporters verbally assaulted Barack Obama supporters and tore down signs promoting Obama and Joe Biden, according to Wendell Ivory, a graduate student in microbial biotechnology.

Students for Change had to set up in an area that was in close proximity to several McCain supporters, Ivory said.

“We had planned a tailgate for the faculty parking lot, but we didn’t know something was already going on there,” Ivory said. “We had to set up in another area and I noticed there were a lot of McCain supporters in the area, but we set up anyway.”

Ivory said most of the students supporting Obama showed up at the tailgate in the faculty parking lot leaving very few students at Tailgating for Change.

“There weren’t very many of us, but we set up and were incident free until just before the game started,” he said. “Someone starting yelling explitives, such as f— Obama and f— that n-word. Then they started tearing down our signs.”

According to Ivory, several students saw what happened but didn’t say anything.

“We were about to break everything down anyway so I wasn’t as upset about that as I was about the people who saw what was happening and didn’t say anything,” he said.

Drew Wall, a senior in history and member of Students for Change, said this kind of behavior is very inappropriate.

“It’s really disrespectful to do something like that,” he said. “It’s OK to agree or disagree with a candidate but people need to portray themselves in a respectful manner. I’m OK with people expressing their opinion but they need to do it civilly.”

According to Ches McDowell, a freshman in political science and chair of College Republicans and communications director for Students for McCain, neither group accepts this kind of behavior from any of its members.

“I think it’s 100 percent completely wrong and inappropriate,” McDowell said. “Regardless of how much I disagree with Obama and how much his positions make me sick, I’m even more disgusted with the use of that kind of language against a presidential candidate, or any person in general. If I ever found out it was a member of College Republicans, they would be kicked out of the club.”