The University of Oregon says it is investigating several recent incidents of antisemitism in its residential dormitories, including reports of a swastika drawn next to a picture of a Jewish student and what one family described as a “Hitler-style” mustache drawn onto the student’s face.
University police and the school’s Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance are also investigating reports of items that were taken from rooms belonging to Jewish students, including ribbons that supported the dozens of hostages who remain in captivity after being abducted during the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel in October 2023.
The hostage takings touched off a brutal military response by Israel that is still raging in Gaza and Lebanon and has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to news reports.
In a letter sent to all students and their families Thursday, the university said that it is also investigating pro-Palestinian brochures that included graphic images from the war that were widely distributed to students living in at least three different residence halls over the past few weeks, without prior approval from campus authorities, in violation of university policy.
“To be clear, incidents targeting any student because of their ancestry, national origin and/or religion are prohibited under university policy,” wrote Vice President for Student Life Angela Chong, Associate Vice President and Chief Civil Rights Officer Nicole Commissiong and Associate Vice President for Student Services Michael Griffel, in their note to families. “Defacing photographs, drawing swastikas, and the use of race-and-religion based slurs and epithets violate the university’s policy prohibiting discrimination.”
About 5,000 students live in residence halls at the University of Oregon.
Like many other college campuses around the country, the University of Oregon was home to heated protests over the Israel-Hamas war last spring. Demonstrators staged a nearly monthlong encampment at a central quad on the campus before negotiating a deal with university officials, including more scholarship funds for students from Gaza and added education offerings centered on Palestine.
University officials did not accede to demands to financially and academically divest from Israel. But students won representation on a Faculty Senate task force assembled to review the school’s investment decisions with an eye on social justice implications.
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