Cornell University and police are currently investigating a series of anti-Semitic incidents after students found three swastikas drawn on campus over the past two weeks.
These swastikas were seen on Cornell’s North Campus. The first, which appeared on Nov. 10, was drawn on a whiteboard inside a residential hall. The second appeared four days later in another dormitory adjacent to where the first incident occurred. The third, found on Nov. 19, was outlined in the snow near the buildings where the first two were discovered.
Cornell’s Vice President of Student Life Ryan Lombardi, “vehemently denounced” these acts in an email sent to students and staff, 10 days after the first swastika was found. The Cornell Daily Sun wrote in an editorial that administrators have failed to act promptly and appropriately in response to these incidents.
“We understand that bias reports are confidential (as they should be!). But do you know what is not confidential? Swastikas drawn on whiteboards and in the snow, in full view of a disturbed North Campus population. It should not have taken a story from The Sun to prompt any sort of recognition from the administration,” the article read.
Cornell Hillel issued a Facebook statement regarding these attacks on Nov. 15, stating that they are “working with authorities and students to create a safer campus climate” and affirming their solidarity for students who felt negatively affected by these acts.
“I am sure there’s a lot of fear, consternation, frustration, disappointment, all those negative feelings associated with being targeted in the place you live, the place you are working and the place you are striving to learn about yourself and become a citizen of the world,” Cornell Hillel President Sasha Chanko told the Cornell Daily Sun.
These incidents at Cornell are not isolated. Acts of anti-Semitism have been spreading nationwide, many of which occurred on college campuses.
On Oct. 29, 150 Cornell students attended a vigil that remembered the victims of the Pittsburgh shooting late October.
Last week, a mural at Duke University remembering the Pittsburgh victims was vandalized.
Similar acts of vandalism also occurred in South Philadelphia in 2015, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported. Two swastikas were spray-painted onto a building in South Philadelphia. The first replaced the letter T in Trump with a swastika and the second followed a Nazi-era phrase.
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