Beloit College campus. Photo: Wikipedia.

Racist graffiti has been appearing of late at different locations around the campus of Wisconsin’s Beloit College, the university newspaper The Round Table reported, with a Jewish student having specific abuse aimed in her direction. 

Last Wednesday, the student found a swastika drawn on a whiteboard outside her room. On Friday — International Holocaust Remembrance Day — a swastika and note reading, “Kike, you should be gassed for what you say & do on this campus. Be worried C**T,” were slipped under her door.

Dean of Students Christina Klawitter told the Round Table that the school is focused on “caring for the student who was directly targeted, and others who are feeling affected; on taking steps to enhance security; and on pursuing information that will allow us to hold someone accountable for this horrific act.”

Ethan Perel-Wertman, a different Jewish student, told the newspaper he is “repulsed and devastated that such a hateful act was committed on our campus. I hope this can serve as a wake up call to the Beloit community that antisemitism is a real problem that continues to exist in our country. In the coming days and weeks I will be working with other students to launch a group to advocate to Jewish students on campus and educate people about antisemitism.”

Megan Miller of the local Jewish congregation B’nai Abraham said in a statement to the paper: “Our congregation is always open to you as a safe space.We denounce antisemitism on campus along with all other hateful sentiments.”

Beloit President Scott Bierman sent out a school-wide email saying, “Our campus cannot operate with ‘business as usual’ at this moment,” and calling on all faculty and students to “help each other understand the forces of racism, misogyny, xenophobia and how they can be countered.”

The incidents at Beloit are part of a spate of antisemitic episodes across North American campuses. At Canada’s Mount Allison University last week, as The Algemeiner reported, a giant swastika was found etched in the snow on the school’s football field.

At the University of Florida, a man wearing a swastika armband rode his bike around campus, returning two days later to flaunt the Nazi symbol again. On his second visit to the premises, he was met by angry students and faculty, who surrounded him and held an impromptu protest.