FIELD HOCKEY
Lowe, alumni discuss impact of residency requirement see FEATURES / PAGE 4
Jumbos start off season undefeated
Narucki, Berman debut Tufts Sunday Concert Series see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 6
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
THE
INDEPENDENT
STUDENT
N E W S PA P E R
OF
TUFTS
UNIVERSITY
E S T. 1 9 8 0
T HE T UFTS DAILY
VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 9
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
tuftsdaily.com
Monaco, Tufts Jewish leaders, Lipstadt respond to swastika posted on studentâs door by Austin Clementi
Executive News Editor
A Jewish student found a swastika posted on their door on Sunday night, according to an email sent to the Tufts community by University President Anthony Monaco yesterday. According to the email, both Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) and the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) are investigating the incident. âAny member of our community who is found to be responsible will face disciplinary sanctions consistent with our University policies against discrimination, bias, and hate,â he said in the email. Monacoâs response to the incident was strong. âI condemn this cowardly act of hatred and ignorance. It is a direct attack on our Jewish community and an affront to our values as an institution,â he said. Deputy Chief of TUPD Mark Keith told the Daily that the incident was reported the next morning, Sept. 16, at 11:15 a.m., adding that the incident occurred on campus. Robert Trestan, the Anti-Defamation Leagueâs New England regional director, said in an interview with the Daily that this is event is reflective not of a rise in antisemitism itself but that more people feel emboldened to commit such acts. âGenerally speaking, we are seeing more and more people feeling empowered to be public and vocal about their hatred toward Jews and other groups,â he said. Chris Rossi, dean of student life and engagement, said in an interview with the Daily that he was âdisheartenedâ by the event. He added that heâs looking forward to the results of the investigation but emphasized that Student Life was not involved. Dean of Student Affairs and Chief Student Affairs Officer ad interim Nancy Thompson confirmed this. Rabbi Naftali Brawer, the Neubauer executive director of Tufts Hillel and uni-
versity Jewish chaplain, was only able to respond by email before press time. In the email, Brawer said Hillel worked with TUPD upon hearing about the event. âOur first response was to make sure the student was OK, we then worked closely with our university partners and law enforcement at Tufts, to make sure it was reported,â he said. Jill Zellmer, the executive director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, praised Tuftsâ response to the incident while commenting on the rise of such incidences in an email to the Daily. âNational incidents of this type in college campus communities are on the rise, and Tufts is not an exception. What is different at Tufts, compared to other places, is that we have an excellent track record of promptly responding to and addressing these types of concerns,â she said. Molly Tunis, a member of Alt-J, a Jewish community group on campus, said in an interview with the Daily that she was disappointed with Monacoâs email, saying she wasnât comforted by Monacoâs response. In particular, Tunis, a senior, pointed to Monacoâs focus on âdivision and disunityâ as missing the point. âTo me, the problem isnât division, itâs white supremacy,â Tunis said. Rabbi Jordan Braunig, Hillelâs director of initiative for innovative community building, said in an interview with the Daily that he was shocked and disheartened when he learned of the event. âAnti-Semitism is strange in the way that ⌠you can get gas-lit enough times where youâre made to question your experience enough that you start to do that on your own,â he said. âMy feeling in hearing about this particular event was just a real deep sense of sadness that the type of vitriol and hatred thatâs symbolized in the swastika would have found its way onto this campus.â
Braunig emphasized that Hillel would be a resource to support students affected by the event. âI think organizationally, we want to support specific students who were touched by this event. We want to open our doors to the wider community and be sure that people have a space to process,â he said. Braunig connected this incident on campus with the larger rise of antisemitic and xenophobic incidents on campus and at large. This incident comes in light of other antisemitic attacks and incidents apparently associated with far-right groups on and off campus. Last fall, the Daily reported on the overnight hanging of posters bearing the phrase âItâs ok to be white,â which is linked to white nationalism, on get-out-the-vote signs. In the spring, posters bearing anti-Israel messages were plastered on Tufts Hillel; a month later, the Daily investigated several controversial incidents that occurred on-campus. According to Rossi, the investigation on the Hillel postering has concluded and was referred to the Student Affairs Office by TUPD. Micah Kraus, also a member of AltJ, said he was not surprised by the incident, saying that white supremacy, not just antisemitism, plays a major role on Tuftsâ campus. âThis doesnât really feel like the rise of white supremacy, itâs just an increase in visibility,â Kraus, a sophomore, said. Kraus added that, while the swastika is impactful to the Jewish community, there are events that display white supremacy every day on Tuftsâ campus that go unnoticed by the administration. Rabbi Tzvi Backman, who runs the programming at Chabad House, said the incident was an example of cowardice aimed at creating fear on campus.
âThe strongest response has to be just increasing the light and the love that exists in this community ⌠The Tufts community is a community where this is not tolerated,â he said. Backman added that students should not be afraid of the incident. âI think that the message needs to be clear that we do not get intimidated from things like this, nor do we get afraid, and we should increase in stepping up in expressing our identity in who we are as Jews because that demonstrates our confidence in the community in which we live,â he said. In line with expressing pride in Jewish identities, Backman said that several students had reached out to him requesting to put a mezuzah, a container which includes excerpts from central prayers in Judaism. Mezuzahs are affixed to doorposts as a physical and symbolic reminder of Jewish faith and heritage. News of this incident from Monacoâs office coincided with an event by Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University, titled âAntisemitism: Here and Now,â which Monacoâs email mentioned. âThis incident of anti-Semitism on our own campus demonstrates exactly why Professor Lipstadtâs work and her appearance today are critically important,â the email said. Monaco attended the entire event and provided opening remarks for it. During the talk, similar to Trestan, Lipstadt said that the rise in such incidents is not indicative of a shift in American politics, but rather the emboldening of white supremacists by people in power such as President Donald Trump. An email from Student Life sent out to the community last night said there will be a community event today at 12 p.m. in Tufts Hillel to reflect on the event. Robert Kaplan and Alexander Thompson contributed reporting to this article.
Cummings School takes precautions against EEE outbreak by Matthew McGovern Assistant News Editor
Seven cases of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), a mosquito-borne disease fatal to humans and animals, have been confirmed since the outbreak started this summer in western Massachusetts. While Medford and Somerville are at low risk for the disease,
Please recycle this newspaper
Mostly Sunny 62 / 47
/thetuftsdaily
Grafton, where Tuftsâ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine is located, is one of 36 Massachusetts communities at âcriticalâ risk for the disease. The most recent case, according to The Boston Globe, hit a middle-aged man in Bristol, Mass. The second human case of EEE this year in Massachusetts was reported in Grafton in August. Additionally, there For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily
tuftsdaily
tuftsdaily
have been two cases of EEE in horses this year, according to Boston 25 News. At the Grafton campus, the administration has taken a number of steps to increase awareness of the disease and take precautions against it. Additionally, the campus has been sprayed to counter mosquitoes at least two times recently, according to Joseph McManus, the exec-
Contact Us P.O.âBox 53018,â Medford, MA 02155 daily@tuftsdaily.com
utive associate dean at the Cummings School. Besides these aerial sprays done by the state government, the Grafton campus itself has taken measures to combat the threat of mosquitoes. According to Cummings student Alexandra Fielding, the university
NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................6
see EEE, page 2
FUN & GAMES.........................8 OPINION.....................................9 SPORTS............................ BACK