http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_9218288
SANTA CRUZ — Anti-Semitic graffiti similar to an image recently discovered at Oakes College was found on a stall in a men’s restroom at Porter College this week, UC Santa Cruz officials disclosed Friday.
The image of a Star of David between what appears to be the World Trade Center towers was discovered Tuesday, documented by police and removed.
The incident brings to three the number of hate bias graffiti cases reported on campus in recent weeks, leaving some to wonder why the chancellor has not issued a statement condemning the rash of vandalism. The graffiti outside an Oakes classroom was discovered April 30 and the phrase “white power” was found scrawled outside a residence hall at Cowell College April 20.
Campus police are coordinating with city police to determine if the graffiti is related to swastika symbols found Thursday outside Emily’s Good Things to Eat, a shop owned by Assembly candidate and City Councilwoman Emily Reilly. Anti-Semitic graffiti also was in the Harvey West area in March.
Rick Zinman, executive director of the Jewish education organization Santa Cruz Hillel, said he could only speculate whether the vandalism’s timing was meant to coincide with this month’s 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. He said all anyone can do is offer education about why hate bias is wrong.
“You can’t prevent this kind of stuff,” he said. “We’re trying to focus on parts we can control.”
Hillel met with Oakes this week to plan an educational program that will complement student-led dialogue already under way. There is also discussion about hosting a campuswide event to explore hate bias.
“I think the whole campus feels violated when something like this happens,” Pedro Castillo, the provost of Oakes College, said Friday. “Students, faculty and staff are saying, ‘What the hell is this?'”
Zinman said Hillel estimates that 2,400 UCSC students, or about 18 percent, are Jewish, according to Hillel’s discussions with students and faculty, as well as attendance at Jewish events.
There were 11 bias incidents reported to the Student Judicial Affairs office during the fall quarter in 2007, the latest period for which figures are available online. Two of the cases were anti-Semitic, including swastikas carved in a bench at Porter and a shed at Oakes.
While officials at individual colleges targeted by graffiti in the past few weeks issued e-mails to students and staff condemning the vandalism, there has been no campuswide statement from Chancellor George R. Blumenthal. However, after racist graffiti targeting black people was found at the Baskin School of Engineering in March 2007, Blumenthal issued a strongly worded message four days later.
“I want to communicate in the strongest terms possible that this type of hateful vandalism deeply disturbs many in our community and we will not tolerate such behavior,” the chancellor wrote in a 2007 administrative message distributed to the entire UCSC community and posted online.
When pressed about why Blumenthal had not issued a similar statement regarding the recent anti-Semitic incidents, his chief of staff and the campus ethics officer, Ashish Sahni, wrote the Sentinel Friday that “Chancellor Blumenthal speaks regularly, on our campus and off, about his deep commitment to diversity and tolerance in all its forms.”
However, Sahni continued, “If statements effectively curbed offensive, insensitive graffiti, we would gladly issue them daily. Action steps are even more important than words. We are in regular consultation with our Hillel Jewish Student Resource Center and the University Inter-Faith Council. Students are organizing peer discussion groups. And, Chancellor Blumenthal has asked that we organize a campus dialogue on diversity and tolerance.”
Mara Burger, a sophomore who leads the Santa Cruz Israel Action Committee, said she asked the chancellor in an e-mail whether there would “be a public denouncement” of the Oakes incident. She received a response from Sahni telling her about the Hillel workshop being planned.
“They pretty much ignored my question,” she said.
Contact J.M. Brown at 429-2410 or jbrown@santacruzsentinel.com.
