A rally for Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen whose slaying at the hands of a neighborhood-watch volunteer has drawn national attention, drew more than 200 people on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University today.

Many of them wore hoodies and carried Skittles and iced tea -- as Trayvon did when he was shot.

Speakers called for the volunteer, George Zimmerman, to be prosecuted. But they also focused on the idea that it was racism that killed Trayvon, who was black. Mr. Zimmerman's heritage is part Hispanic, part white.

Many speakers at the rally, organized by the Black Graduate Student Organization, said everyone needs to do more to help fight the stereotypes that they believe lie at the heart of Trayvon's death.

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"The true killer of Trayvon Martin is racism," said Brittany Claud, a 24-year-old from Atlanta who is working toward master's degrees in public policy and business administration at CMU.

She donned a purple hoodie and riffed on the assumption that Trayvon's sweatshirt made him look suspicious.

"Today I am wearing a hoodie, a dual master's student," she said.

Mr. Zimmerman told authorities he was suspicious of Trayvon, who was walking to his father's house in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. He told authorities he fired the fatal shots because he felt threatened by the young man, though news reports of the content 911 tapes suggest he got out of his car and pursued Trayvon.

Christopher Lindsay, a CMU sophomore studying information systems, said today that he's been a target of profiling by university police who stop him to "make sure that we belong here and that we are actually students."

"Discrimination is real," he said. "Racial profiling is real and we must demand justice and a full investigation into the shooting of Trayvon Martin."

Mr. Lindsay went further, and urged the audience to address the stereotypes in their own hearts.

"But the story doesn't end there," he said. "... I'm just as wrong when I joke about my Hispanic brothers being illegal or assume my Asian brothers know karate. I'm just as wrong when I assume a white officer is only stopping me or pulling up beside me because I'm black. In this way, I'm not better than George Zimmerman."

Other speakers, like Zoe Samudzi, a 19-year-old University of Pittsburgh student studying political science, urged the group to take political action,

"We must remain attentive," she said. "We must demand police and government accountability," said Ms. Samudzi. "Our government has failed us ... society presumes our guilt."

First Published: March 26, 2012, 11:00 p.m.