http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_9116356
UC Santa Cruz officials said campus police are investigating anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on a wall outside a classroom at Oakes College, a school whose stated mission is to support social justice
through celebrating ethnic diversity.
The drawing, which depicts the Star of David resting between the World Trade Center towers as an airplane approaches, was painted by a facilities crew after police took photographs, campus spokesman Jim Burns said Wednesday. Police have not immediately identified a suspect.
The issue of Jewish-Palestinian has long been a hotly debated issue on campus. The graffiti follows similar anti-Semitic writings that appeared at Stevenson College in 2006, after which students were
mandated to attend a film and lecture by a Jewish leader on racial tolerance.
It was not immediately clear who first reported the graffiti to campus authorities, but Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a professor in the Jewish Studies division [ SPME Faculty Forum Editor Note: and co-coordinator of SPME- UCSC] said a student notified her after first spotting seeing the graffiti Tuesday. Rossman-Benjamin said she visited Oakes an hour later to document it with photographs.
“It was really disgusting – it was clearly anti-Semitic,” she said, noting the “666” sign of Satan that appears below the Twin Towers. “It was highly offensive.”
Rossman-Benjamin fired off an e-mail to Chancellor George Blumenthal, which Oakes Provost Pedro Castillo responded to, saying the graffiti had been removed. Rossman-Benjamin responded to Castillo – and repeated in a Sentinel interview Wednesday – that she wants the university administration to issue a sternly worded statement that decries the graffiti as “morally reprehensible.”
“You can’t just paint it away,” she told the Sentinel. “You have to relate to it… and make sure students know it’s absolutely wrong.”
When reached Wednesday evening Castillo said he would issue a statement condemning the graffiti and student life leaders will meet today to discuss their response to the incident.
“I condemn this. It has no place not only at Oakes College but at UCSC,” he said. “Whether there’s any symbolism about the mission of our college, I have no idea.”
Rick Zinman, executive director of Santa Cruz Hillel, a Jewish education support network headquartered near campus, said his organization is in talks with the university to provide a tolerance class for Oakes students similar to the one organized after the Stevenson incident.
“It’s ugly and disgusting,” Zinman said of the graffiti, “and the university looks like they are taking appropriate steps to address the issue.”
Contact J.M. Brown at 429-2410 or jbrown@santacruzsentinel.com.
