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Jewish, LGBT, non-white students targeted with Swastikas in their dorms, NY.


Dorm Rooms in the Kerrey Hall residential building were vandalized with Swastikas over the weekends.

Kerrey Hall houses students at the New School, NY.

Several students woke over the weekend to find that the doors of their dorm rooms had been vandalized with Swastika graffiti. It appears that the vandals have deliberately targeted Jewish, LGBT and non-white students.

The School’s President circulated the following statement to students by email:

“I have just learned of the defacement of four dormitory doors on our campus with a symbol intended to threaten and express hatred toward some of our students because of their identities.  Our community standards are very strong and hate crimes are unacceptable at The New School.The New School is committed to tolerance, respect, and diversity.  Any form of expression that denigrates members of our community based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual or gender identity, or political beliefs is completely abhorrent and antithetical to our core values. We take any such instance seriously, investigate swiftly, and take appropriate action to ensure the security and safety of all our students”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has also said “Hate speech is reprehensible, and has no place in NYC. To the affected, we stand with you. To the perpetrators, we are better than this“.

Though it appears as if the School has taken the incident seriously, it is unknown whether the police have become involved. This is just one in a string of incidents that have victimised Jewish students, a trend which inevitably has started to target other minority students too. It is indicative of an environment on University campuses, both in the USA and elsewhere, in which Jewish students no longer feel safe.

Whilst some news sources have tried to link the incident to the election of Donald Trump, which in some areas has indeed led to flare ups of antisemitic incidents, there appears to be little evidence to substantiate this claim in this case. Instead, it fits clearly into the trend of campus intimidation against Jewish students, both from the far-left and far-right.