Two swastikas were spray-painted on a Jewish fraternity house at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and swastikas and racist slurs were scrawled in bathrooms and in a classroom at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
At Vanderbilt, the incident occurred March 14 at Alpha Epsilon Pi and was discovered after a party there, the Vanderbilt Hustler student newspaper reported. The swastikas were drawn in the elevator and on a basement door.
The university provost, Susan Wente, said the university’s police department was investigating.
“We understand the anguish and pain that this hateful symbol causes and we stand together to condemn any effort to intimidate or send an unwelcoming message to the Jewish members of the Vanderbilt community,” Wente said.
The graffiti at John Jay included two anti-Semitic messages, one racist slur and an anti-gay message. The college’s vice president, Lynette Cook-Francis, met with representatives of the groups targeted in the hate messages.
College officials also met with the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes unit.
John Jay’s Hillel chapter said it was gratified by the administration’s swift removal of the hateful graffiti.
“It might be easy to dismiss this as a minor act of vandalism but given the rise of global anti-Semitism (including on college campuses), we must be vigilant in speaking out against all manifestations of anti-Jewish behavior and symbols,” the Hillel chapter said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a swastika was found posted on the bulletin board of the International House at George Washington University, which houses members of nine fraternities and sororities. It was posted by a member of the predominantly Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau, the student newspaper reported.
The Metropolitan Police Department and University Police Department have launched a hate crimes investigation into the incident. — jta