Anti-Semitism Comes to Vanderbilt University

Nashville, TN–Members of the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi at Vanderbilt University became the latest target of campus anti-Semitism–discovering swastika’s spray-painted in the elevator of their fraternity house, and another swastika painted on a basement door, according to an e-mail from Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan Wente.

According to a campus-wide email sent out by Wente on Monday the Vanderbilt University Police Department, with the assistance from the Dean of Students Office, is currently investigating the hate crime.

“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.

Dean of Students Mark Bandas sent an e-mail later that day advising students of available resources for those troubled by the incident.

According to the Vanderbilt Hustler, Executive Director of Vanderbilt Hillel Ari Dubin wrote in a statement, “Vanderbilt Hillel, Chabad, and the rest of the Jewish community on campus stands firmly with AEPi. While the swastikas were spray-painted at the AEPi house, this inexcusable incident impacts every Jew on campus, and has no place at Vanderbilt.”

Dubin continued, “Spray painting swastikas at a Jewish fraternity is not a college prank or some mischievous act of vandalism. It is a malicious attack intended to bring to mind the horrors of the Holocaust, to force us to feel different, endangered and isolated.”

This is just the latest anti-Semitic attack on U.S. college campuses.

Last week in New York City, John Jay College of Criminal Justice was the scene of swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs, accompanied by racist and homophobic graffiti.

Earlier this year, Jewish students at the University of California at Davis awoke one morning to swastikas spray-painted on their fraternity house. This occurred less than 48 hours after the school student government passed an anti-Israel resolution to boycott targeted companies who do business with the Jewish state.