Vassar Palestinian Group Reviewed After Posting Nazi Cartoon Online
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The Vassar College chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian student group, is being reviewed by the college administration after the group posted a Nazi propaganda cartoon on a social media site.
The post on the Vassar SJP Tumblr page, which has since been removed, showed a Nazi propaganda poster depicting a many-armed figure sporting a Jewish loincloth and holding, among other things, a bag of money and an American flag. The cartoon is captioned “liberators.”
On Wednesday, Vassar President Catherine Hill announced that SJP’s status as an approved student group is under review.
“The college is also investigating the SJP’s online posting as a bias incident under college regulations,” Hill wrote in a statement. “I also request that the SJP Vassar membership take responsibility for its actions and cease representing itself as an official Vassar group, pending these investigations. Vassar College is committed to free speech and academic freedom, but we condemn racist, hateful speech.”
Vassar SJP issued an apology Tuesday on its Tumblr account apologizing for lax social media oversight and condemning hate.
“We condemn any and all hate speech including any form of anti-Semitism and we are deeply sorry several offensive posts were made in SJP Vassar’s name,” the apology read.
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