Swastika Found on Door of Jewish TC Professor

A swastika was found spray-painted on the office door of a Teachers College professor known for her research on the Holocaust Wednesday.

The swastika was found amid a spate of bias incidents at TC and at Columbia University. The professor, Elizabeth Midlarsky, said she feels personally targeted by the swastika.

“It’s not going to stop me, but I’m certainly shaken. I go back and forth between frightened and furious,” Midlarsky said.

Last week, two Jewish TC professors received anti-Semitic materials. Earlier in October, a noose was found hung from the door of African American TC professor Madonna Constantine.

Officers from the New York Police Department’s crime scene unit and Columbia Public Safety huddled around 328 Horace Mann Hall early Wednesday afternoon. Police said they were notified of the incident at 8 a.m., and they are treating it as a hate crime. In a statement, administrators confirmed that the swastika was found on the door of a Jewish professor.

Midlarsky belongs to the department of counseling and clinical psychology, where she works with Constantine.

“It was an act in cowardice because it was done when no one was here,” Midlarsky said. “I’m very open about the fact that I’m Jewish, the fact that I study the Holocaust, ... and apparently someone tried to make me a target.”

“There’s always going to be someone working against us building a stronger community,” said Jasmine Alvarez, TC Student Senate diversity representative and CCP student. “It’s disappointing, but I’m not surprised.”

TC President Susan Fuhrman and Provost Tom James sent an e-mail at 1 p.m. notifying the TC community of the hate crime. But some students said they did not receive the e-mail and learned about the hate crime second-hand from concerned staff members.

The e-mail condemned the incident and its perpetrator. “Clearly this action is a serious hate crime, and just as clearly TC and its faculty members are the focus of a malicious campaign to cause fear.” The e-mail said TC has been targeted because the school is “a center for deep multi-cultural work.”

“It’s a little disturbing that the administration didn’t get in touch with us because we’ve had all these conversations about how they went about getting information to us after the noose incident,” Alvarez said. “People that are at home today ... will find out from the news and not from the administration.”

Joe Levine, director of external affairs at TC, said his office sent the e-mail to a community list that includes students. He added that his personal e-mail had not worked properly yesterday afternoon, and if students did not receive the e-mail it is due to a system malfunction.

Students expressed concerns about safety on campus Wednesday. “The perpetrator had to get in there with a key to jimmy the door [to 328 Horace Mann] because the clinical psychology department isn’t open all the time,” said one TC student government official who was granted anonymity due to her ongoing relationship with administrators.

Recent bias incidents have not been confined to the TC campus. Anti-Semitic graffiti was found in a bathroom stall in Lewisohn Hall earlier this month, while in September, Islamophobic graffiti was found on the walls of a bathroom in the International Affairs Building. At George Washington University, vandals have posted seven swasitkas on campus in the past week.

Chris Colombo, dean of Student Affairs for Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, sent an e-mail to students in the school Wednesday evening. “While immediate steps have been taken to remove the vandalized door, the impact of this hateful act can not be removed as quickly.”

Fuhrman and James wrote that they would work to find the perpetrator. “We will do everything necessary to find and punish those who have committed these acts,” the e-mail stated. “Such vicious actions are the work of hate-filled, angry individuals who have no place here or in any community that values inclusion and respect. As an institution, we repudiate them and their actions.”

Midlarsky said that the act was intolerable. “There are people who are black, who are Jewish, who are in other groups, who have been historically discriminated against and who need to hear the community in expressing support,” she said. “I hope that they’ll catch the person or group. I understand there’s a low probability in that, but I hope it happens. When you don’t know it’s more frightening.”

Laura Schreiber contributed to this article.
Joy Resmovits can be reached at joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com.