the wsu has received national attention for participating in community watch programs to raise awareness about violent crime that is primarily directed at the majority-white student body. wsu president matthew heimbach said that "the goal is not to go out and intimidate, the goal is not to go out and prove something, the goal is just to be an extra set of eyes and ears for the [towson] community at large." organizations like the southern poverty law center and the anti-defamation league condemned these patrols as being racially motivated. the southern poverty law center said that the patrols were "a fairly obvious allusion, it appears, to the terroristic role of the ku klux klan during reconstruction."