The door of a New York University Jewish student’s dormitory room was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, said NYU President Linda Mills and Fountain Walker, global campus safety vice president.
The Jewish student had reportedly returned to his room on the evening of September 9 to find the antisemitic graffiti on his door. The graffiti has since been cleaned.
Mills and Walker said on September 10 that the incident was being investigated by NYU Campus Safety, the New York Police Department, and the NYU Civil Rights Title VI Coordinator’s Office.
“The targeting of a Jewish student is inexcusable, raw hatred,” Mills and Walker said in their statement. “We are committed to maintaining a community where all feel safe and welcome and to eliminating antisemitism and other forms of hatred.”
Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, the executive director of NYU’s Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, said that every antisemitism complaint being submitted was being treated with professionalism, and he noted that the most recent incident had no connection to the September 1 theft of a mezuzah from a dormitory doorframe.
Perpetrator apologized for mezuzah removal
On September 1, a mezuzah, a religious item affixed to the doorframe of Jewish residences and rooms, was removed from the doorpost of a Jewish student’s room. While the act was initially suspected to be an antisemitic incident, it was later revealed not to be motivated by anti-Jewish animus when the perpetrator turned themselves in, returned the mezuzah, and apologized.
Walker said on September 5 that, for privacy reasons, further details could not be provided on the matter.
“The account given to Campus Safety and other university officials enables us to confidently conclude that, while problematic judgment was demonstrated, the investigation of the incident as an antisemitic incident should be closed.”