A handful of dorm room doors in the Kerrey Hall residence building were vandalized with swastika signs early Saturday morning.
Four all-female rooms with LGBTQ, women of color, and Jewish students appear to have been targeted, all on the 15th floor of Kerrey Hall.
The doors, made of whiteboard material, are commonly used to share messages around the residence hall. Students are encouraged at the beginning of the year to draw and write “positive” messages on each other’s doors.
Lizzy Katz, a junior majoring in Fashion Design at Parsons, reported the incident to security around 11 a.m after she found the swastika on her door.
“I took a picture, sent it in a group message to my suite mates and erased it out of shame,” Katz said. “That’s not something I want on my door if I don’t have to have it on my door.”
While Katz cleaned her door down after the incident was reported to the RA’s and security, maintenance workers worked to clean the other defaced doors.
“My mom is a sergeant in the Philadelphia Police Department so she knows how to deal with police—so I talked to the police,” Jess Williams, Katz suitemate and a BAFA student at Parsons and Lang said. “So that’s kind of what our morning has been like.”
Parsons junior Sam Lichtenstein, Katz and Williams’ suitemate, tweeted about the incident. At the time of this writing, that post has since been retweeted 1,148 times with responses from The New School President David Van Zandt and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
We woke up to this on our door, in a dorm at @TheNewSchool, where 3 Jewish women live. @ShaunKing @deray @parsonsdesign pic.twitter.com/tK1IpXA1ae
— sam ☕ (@samlichtenstein) November 12, 2016
New School President David Van Zandt responded on twitter by saying the incident goes “against every value of The New School. We are taking immediate and appropriate action.”
Abhorrent. This is against every value of @TheNewSchool. We are taking immediate and appropriate action. https://t.co/w2TRE3pjCx
— David E. Van Zandt (@DavidVanZandt) November 12, 2016
Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, also responded to the tweet saying “Hate speech is reprehensible, and has no place in NYC. To the affected, we stand with you. To the perpetrators, we are better than this.”
Hate speech is reprehensible, and has no place in NYC. To the affected, we stand with you. To the perpetrators, we are better than this. https://t.co/8J4JU56yti
— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 12, 2016
President Van Zandt issued the following statement to the New School community over email:
“I have just learned of the defacement of four dormitory doors on our campus with a symbol intended to threaten and express hatred toward some of our students because of their identities. Our community standards are very strong and hate crimes are unacceptable at The New School.The New School is committed to tolerance, respect, and diversity. Any form of expression that denigrates members of our community based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual or gender identity, or political beliefs is completely abhorrent and antithetical to our core values. We take any such instance seriously, investigate swiftly, and take appropriate action to ensure the security and safety of all our students.”
The New School is historically known for be a safe haven for Jewish intellectuals being persecuted in Europe in the 40s.
Earlier in the Fall semester, a student on the 14th floor of Kerrey had his door vandalized with rude remarks and inappropriate graphics. It is unclear if these two incidents are connected.
Similar incidents have been reported around the country following the announcement that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. At SUNY Geneseo in Geneseo, New York on Friday, a swastika and the word “Trump” were also graffitied on a residence hall, Livingston County News reported.