Students painted the free expression tunnel black and blocked access Wednesday night and early Thursday morning in protest of the presence of racially offensive images and slurs on the tunnel walls.

The latest of a series of images offending minority communities at N.C. State depicted a sexually explicit picture of black man labeled as President Obama with racial slurs spray-painted on his face.

As a response to this image and others like it, a band of students joined hands and prohibited passage through the tunnel after painting most of it black.

The tradition of painting in the free expression tunnel began in the 1960s as a way for the University to combat the graffiti problem on campus, but students like Lauren Gayden, a senior in sports management, are wondering if limits should be placed on the tunnel’s content.

“I love N.C. State,” Gayden said. “But this makes the whole university look bad, even though we know not everyone is like this. But it is embarrassing, and disappointing.”

Salena Boston, a senior in biology and psychology, said offensive graffiti is not a new phenomenon.

“Two years ago, I’m not even trying to be funny, but it was so hard to sit in my Bio 183 class and hear the lecture over the snickers and remarks about what happened here. It was a joke. It wasn’t an issue.” said Boston. “It was, ‘Ha ha. I wonder who did that. I wonder how many n****** got offended,’ with four or five students, African-Americans, sitting right there.”

Thomas Stafford, vice chancellor of student affairs, spoke with the protestors Thursday morning, and said while the tunnel serves as a place for students to express their opinions, the University does not back the offensive images and should step forward and denounce these actions.

“This is a big place, a diverse place, and there are many different points of view. This is a place where people can express their point of view. Sometimes when they express their point of view it is offensive, it’s hateful, and it’s extremely inappropriate,” said Stafford. “And when that happens the university needs to step up and say, ‘This is not N.C. State. We object to what has been done, and it does not reflect the values of N.C. State.'”

In the discussion between Stafford and the protestors, many solutions to the problem of racist graffiti were proposed.

“I think the University should shut down all of the traffic through the tunnel for a week,” said Gayden. “There should be a sign that simply says ‘appreciate.’ Maybe then people would understand.”

However, since the Free Expression Tunnel is one of the only handicap accessible tunnels on campus, Stafford said that is not a plausible solution.

Instead, Stafford said a more appropriate alternative would be to prohibit all painting of the tunnel for a week.

“What I think we can look at is doing a moratorium on speech to where for a week we say there is not painting allowed,” said Stafford. “But to plan something like that, we would need to get all of the right people, the right organizations, involved.”