Stanford University announced Saturday that it has launched an investigation to find the perpetrator responsible for drawing an image of Adolf Hitler and swastikas on a blackboard taped to it in a student’s dormitory.
University officials said the act could constitute a hate crime, given that the student whose room was targeted is Jewish and the drawing could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate him.
“Let’s be clear: Stanford wholeheartedly rejects anti-Semitism, racism, hatred and related symbols, which are reprehensible and will not be tolerated,” the letter signed by four university officials said.
The affected student told the Stanford Daily, the university’s student newspaper, that the incident left him shaken.
“It’s very disturbing to think that I was in my room sleeping and someone was outside my door doing this,” said the student, whose name has not been released.
The incident is not the only hate incident reported on campus this academic year.
A student last month found multiple swastikas, the word us and the letters “KKK” scrawled on metal wall plaque in a men’s bathroom on campus, according to Stanford’s identity-protected injury reporting site.
On March 3, a swastika reading “KKK” was carved into the wall of a disabled men’s restroom, the report said.
Both incidents were declared hate crimes, but the university was unable to find out who was behind them.
“Vandalism of property, particularly with words intended to threaten and intimidate individuals (particularly in this case the Black and Jewish communities) is contrary to Stanford’s values,” the report said. “It’s totally unacceptable in our community.”
In November, an unknown person removed an Israeli flag from a display of flags from countries around the world.
“Targeting people because of their nationality or ancestry is a form of discrimination,” the university said. “Although the flag was a symbolic representation of a country, Jewish students felt particularly targeted because of the historical connection to Israel.”
In September, the university said a mezuzah was removed from the dormitory door of two Jewish graduate students on campus on the last day of Rosh Hashanah.
The university apologized last year after a Stanford-commissioned task force found that the university restricted admission to Jewish students in the 1950s and continued to deny it for many years afterward.
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