"it was decided that on Day of Absence, white students, staff and faculty will be invited to leave the campus for the day's activities" to attend an off-campus event. The off-campus event was held at a church that accommodated 200 people, about 7% of the white student body. An event for students of color was held on the Evergreen campus. Bret Weinstein, a professor of biology at Evergreen, wrote a letter in March to Evergreen faculty, protesting the change in format, stating "On a college campus, one's right to speak—or to be—must never be based on skin color." and "There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away." The incident attracted national attention, with The New York Times writing that Evergreen "found itself on the front line of the national discontent over race, speech and political disagreement" and that the national exposure led "right-leaning websites to [heap derision] on their newest college target". In late May 2017, student protests disrupted the campus and called for a number of changes to the college. Protesters occupied the office of Evergreen’s President George Bridges, without permission; exits to the campus library were blocked with furniture. Weinstein was told by campus police that it was not safe for him to be on campus, which caused Weinstein to hold his biology class in a public park. Weinstein and his wife, professor Heather Heying, later resigned and each received a $250,000 settlement with the university, after having sued for $3.8 million for failing to "protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence". A June 1 direct threat to campus safety led to an evacuation and two-day closure of the campus. According to campus police, protesters with sticks and bats caused approximately $10,000 in damage to the campus and forced closure of the school for an additional day. Two weeks later, a June 15 protest on campus by the far-right group Patriot Prayer led to the campus being closed early. The following day, Evergreen's 2017 commencement ceremony was also moved off-campus because of safety concerns. Through the spring and summer, African American students reported receiving harassing and threatening messages. An African American staff member and