When UI students Justin Talley and Ryan Thomas saw the door to their East Jefferson Street apartment for the first time on Sunday, they thought someone was playing a sick joke on them.

But it became quickly apparent that there was nothing funny about it.

“2 dead niggers.” “Hang u coons.” “Fuckin terrist niggers.”

An oak door that once only displayed an apartment number was now a pedestal for words of hate and bigotry sprawled in large, messy black print next to depictions of a noose and two stick figures being lynched.

“I was just in disbelief when I saw it,” Talley said. “Basically, I was like, ‘What year is this?’ In 2008 - I can’t believe this is happening.”

Talley and Thomas, a senior and junior respectively, found out about the prejudiced writing when Michael Charles, a UI senior who lives in the same apartment complex as Talley and Thomas, discovered it and woke the roommates up.

“I was surprised - it’s not the kind of thing you expect,” Thomas said. “You’ll hear of the ignorance of racism in Iowa City, but when it hits close to home - it’s different.”