After the alarming anti-Semitic incident at UCLA earlier this year, the national discussion about the problem of anti-Semitism on college campuses continues.
While such incidents are certainly disturbing, it is important to note that these incidents are relatively rare, and the vast majority of Jewish students report feeling safe on their campuses. When such incidents do occur, they are generally condemned by administrators and the wider campus communities at their respective colleges.
That being said, anti-Semitic incidents continue to take place on campuses in 2015. Below are some selected examples:
- In May at Drexel, a student came back to his dorm room to find a swastika and the word “JEW” taped next to his Israeli
Swastika and the word “JEW” taped next to a Drexel student’s Israeli flag in his dorm room
flag.
- Several swastikas, along with personal slurs and epithets, were spray-painted on Stanford University’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon in April.
- In April, vandalism of a dorm at the University of Missouri included a swastika, the Illuminati symbol, and the word “heil.” Later, another swastika and the words, “You’ve been warned,” were discovered in the same area.
- A dorm at Purchase College, SUNY was vandalized on March 18 with swastikas and other hateful graffiti.
- Swastikas were spray-painted inside the house of a Jewish fraternity (Alpha Epsilon Pi) at Vanderbilt University on March 15.
- In March at the University of California, Los Angeles, a student was asked, “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” during the Student Council’s confirmation of the nomination of the student to the council’s Judicial Board.
- At the University of California, Berkeley, the phrase “Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber” was found in a campus restroom in March and a swastika was found on a university owned building in February.
- On February 22, University of Chicago students and staff reported anti-Semitic posts on a Facebook page called UChicago Secrets, such as “People are hypocrites. This is a fact. One example? The Jews at UChicago…” and “As a Person of Palestinian descent, I don’t think it is unreasonable or horrific for me to hate Jews…”
- At the end of February, threatening anti-Semitic comments were posted on Yik Yak (an anonymous social media app that allows people to send and receive posts in a localized area) for the University of Chicago area. Some posts named specific students, while others expressed more general anti-Semitic sentiments such as, “Gas them, burn them and dismantle their power structure. Humanity cannot progress with the parasitic Jew.”
- In February, three swastikas were drawn inside a George Washington University dorm.
Swastikas on the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house at the University of California, Davis
- On January 31, two large swastikas were spray-painted on the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house at the University of California, Davis.
If you have experienced an anti-Semitic incident on campus or elsewhere, please report it to ADL here.