After plastering their four-bedroom suite with Nazi symbols and racial slurs, and clamping a bike lock around their black roommate's neck, three white San Jose State University freshmen have been charged with misdemeanor hate crime and battery.

The three students—Logan Beaschler, 18; Joseph Bomgardner, 19; and Colin Warren, 18—face a maximum sentence of one year in county jail, if convicted.

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The defendants are also accused of nicknaming their roommate, whose name has not been released, "Three-Fifths," in reference to the infamous U.S. constitutional provision that defined a slave as three-fifths of a person.

An incensed group of more than 500 students and community activists marched across the San Jose campus Thursday to denounce the alleged crimes.

 

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