Swastikas painted in Jewish fraternity in Tennessee
Vanderbilt University investigating incident as hate crime, days after different US university expelled fraternity members for racist chant.
The swastikas were painted in the building's elevator and on a basement door in the middle of the night on Saturday, the university in Nashville said in a statement. The vandalism happened after a party at the Tau Chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi.
"Regardless of who is responsible and what the motivation was, the university condemns the reprehensible depiction of this symbol that since the time of Nazi Germany has come to be associated with hate, anti-Semitism, violence, death and murder," Susan Wente, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said in a statement.
The Vanderbilt incident comes days after the University of Oklahoma expelled two members of a fraternity who led a racist chant on a bus.
Executive Director of Vanderbilt Hillel Ari Dubin wrote to school newspaper the Vanderbilt Hustler that the organization was outraged.
“Vanderbilt Hillel, Chabad, and the rest of the Jewish community on campus stands firmly with AEPi,” Dubin said. “While the swastikas were spray-painted at the AEPi house, this inexcusable incident impacts every Jew on campus, and has no place at Vanderbilt.
“Spray painting swastikas at a Jewish fraternity is not a college prank or some mischievous act of vandalism,” said Dubin. “It is a malicious attack intended to bring to mind the horrors of the Holocaust, to force us to feel different, endangered and isolated.”
Reuters contirbuted to this report.
