Weeks after the brutal slaying of a graduate student at Virginia Tech by another graduate student, the institution’s president, Charles W. Steger, sent an open letter to the campus this week to confront what he called “troubling” ethnically charged commentary about the suspected killer, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

The killing last month was the first at Virginia Tech since a massacre in 2007 in which the gunman, a student, was a South Korean immigrant. A university spokesman, Lawrence G. Hincker, told the Associated Press that the institution had recently received several dozen letters, e-mail messages, and calls attacking foreigners and questioning whether Virginia Tech should admit international students.

Mr. Steger strongly defended the university’s international students in his message this week. “Virginia Tech is an open and accepting community including many races, ethnicities, and cultures from around the world,” the letter states. “We believe firmly that this diversity enriches the educational experience of all of our students.” —Charles Huckabee