Anti-Semitic and Homophobic Messages Found on Walls of Brown Dorms
(JTA) — Anti-Semitic and homophobic messages were written on the walls of a student dormitory at Brown University.
The vandalism discovered early Friday morning at the Providence, Rhode Island, school came days after the cancellation of an appearance by prominent African-American transgender activist Janet Mock at the Brown University Hillel after facing criticism for allegedly supporting the Jewish group’s “pinkwashing” of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
The graffiti discovered in the Marcy House student housing, written in black marker, read “Gay will die” and “Holocaust 2.0,” the Brown Daily Herald, a campus student newspaper, reported.
A Jewish fraternity, Beta Rho Pi, is housed in the building, and many LGBTQ students also live there, according to the newspaper. Members of the Jewish fraternity and Zeta Delta Xi, a coed fraternity also housed in the building, washed the graffiti off the walls the same night it was discovered.
“One message was directly across from my dorm room, apparently reacting to the Hebrew writing and Mezuzah on my door,” wrote senior Sam Rubinstein, a member of to Zeta Delta Xi, in an email to The Herald, which he also posted on Facebook.
The two fraternities released a joint statement.
“We are devastated and outraged that this anti-Semitic and homophobic hate crime — and to be clear, this is a hate crime — occurred in our home,” they wrote.
The campus Department of Public Safety reportedly has launched an investigation.
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