Offensive Graffiti Found in Hewitt Hall

Sexist graffiti was found on the message boards of two sixth-floor residents in Barnard’s Hewitt Hall Monday morning.

The response of the hall, which held an exploratory meeting Monday evening, has largely been one of saddened disappointment, according to the floor’s RA. “I think there’s just a lot of frustration,” sixth-floor RA Monnica Chan, BC ’09, said. “It’s disturbing because this is a living environment.”

Residents added that their sense of community has remained strong despite the incident. “We’re all very sure that it’s not someone on the hall, which makes it hard to get really angry at anyone or anything [specific],” said Anne Norrick, BC ’09 and a sixth-floor resident.

The two sketches appeared between midnight and 4 a.m. on Monday, and the perpetrator has not yet been identified.

One drawing was on an index card stuck to a hallway bulletin board. “It was a stick figure drawing of a person holding a burning bra, and there was the word feminist with the ‘f’ made into a swastika,” Norrick said.

The other image was left on a resident’s door. “The one on a whiteboard,” Chan said, “was a woman being chainsawed in half.”

Kat Lam, BC ’09, said that the sting of the event has been diminished by students’ recent return to campus after winter break. “I think everyone’s been busy since it’s the first day back,” said Lam, a sixth floor resident.

Barnard President Judith Shapiro addressed the incident in an e-mail sent Tuesday afternoon to residents of the Barnard Quad. “This is a deeply distressing start to the new semester, and insofar as the graffiti appears to target feminism, it is appalling to encounter this at a women’s college,” she wrote. She cautioned against an angry backlash, citing “an opportunity ... to commit to a positive and open exchange of thoughts and ideas, and a culture of respect for all members of our community.”

Chan said she was pleased by the administration’s support. She added that a similar incident had occurred on the hall during the fall semester, but was handled differently. “The administrative decision [then] was to not send out a campus-wide e-mail so as to not empower the perpetrator,” she explained. “[This time,] they just really want the Barnard community to know that this is something that’s going on.”

mary.kohlman@columbiaspectator.com