College students condemn lack of College motion on Islamophobia as hate crime investigation continues over hit-and-run

Antisemitic messages had been written in chalk on White Plaza Wednesday, close to a pro-Palestine sit-in. The chalk messages had been falsely assumed to be written by pro-Palestinian college students on the sit-in and had been circulated broadly on social media.

The chalking follows a reported rise of hate crimes focusing on Muslim, Arab and Jewish college students on campus.

Arrows across the messages pointed on the sit-in, and had been phrased in a method that implied they had been written by its members. President Richard Saller mentioned that “the chalking was created by a Jewish group member who was making an attempt to make use of irony and sarcasm to attract adverse consideration to the pro-Palestinian protests on campus,” at Thursday’s College Senate session.

Saller referenced an Instagram publish by Hillel that has since been taken down.

In a press release to The Each day, College spokesperson Dee Mostofi wrote, “The chalking was repugnant and offensive to each Jewish and Muslim group members.”

Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, govt director of Hillel at Stanford, wrote to The Each day that “the person was not a scholar” and “Hillel was not concerned.” 

“What college students advised me is that the person was trying to make use of irony to make some extent, thought higher of it, erased it, and apologized to college students within the tent space,” Kirschner wrote.

A photograph of the chalk, together with added textual content on the picture that implied the messages had been written by sit-in members, was posted to social media on Thursday and went viral on X (previously Twitter), with over 2.3 million views as of Saturday.

Some responses known as for the expulsion of pro-Palestinian sit-in members. Stanford alumni have additionally approached the sit-in with the idea that the chalking was written by members, in keeping with an email from sit-in members obtained by The Each day. 

One response on X to the preliminary tweet — which implied the message was written by sit-in members — learn, “I do know there are some Israeli college students in Stanford who served in the IDF and I actually hope that they went to ‘chat’ about it with them.” One other learn “Stanford has officially fallen.”

Over the previous two weeks, members of the sit-in and college students within the higher Stanford group have filed “dozens of harassment instances,” “with out enough response or express public condemnation from the College,” the e-mail learn.

Sit-in members additionally expressed frustration that directors reportedly threatened disciplinary motion if they didn’t finish the in a single day portion of the sit-in as a consequence of security issues.

Vice Provost Susie Brubaker-Cole and Dean Mona Hicks initially requested sit-in members to finish the in a single day encampments by Nov. 6 out of concern for the sit-in protesters and “the dangers posed by in a single day tenting within the midst of an open campus,” Mostofi advised The Each day. 

Brubaker-Cole and Hicks have since retracted their request and that there are “no plans for disciplinary motion for the sit-in at White Plaza,” Mostofi wrote.

On Friday morning, the scholars on the sit-in wrote to the administration requesting them to broadly publicize the reality concerning the chalking. In line with Draper Dayton ’25, a participant on the sit-in, the e-mail wrote that if the College “did nothing within the face of defamatory assaults and on-line calls to violence, they might be speaking that aggression towards Palestinian, Arab Muslim and pro-Palestinian college students is tolerated on this campus.”

Dayton mentioned “it took lower than a day for our worry to come back true” and that he believed a hit-and-run incident that happened Friday was motivated by Islamophobia. The hit-and-run is being investigated as a hate crime.

Abdulwahab Omira ’23, a Muslim Arab co-term scholar at Stanford, was the sufferer of the hit-and-run at Campus Drive and Ayrshire Farm Lane. Omira mentioned he was intentionally hit whereas sporting a shirt with textual content in Arabic.

The motive force allegedly “made eye contact with the sufferer, accelerated and struck the sufferer, after which drove away whereas shouting ‘f*** you and your individuals’ out the lowered window of the car,” in keeping with an up to date AlertSU from the Stanford College Division of Public Security (SUDPS).

Omira was despatched to the emergency room and is at the moment hospitalized with non-life threatening accidents, in keeping with a Friday e-mail from Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez.

In line with the e-mail from sit-in members, Omira acknowledged the perpetrator as somebody who beforehand recorded protestors at pro-Palestine rallies.

The suspect was described as “a white male in his mid 20s, with brief dirty-blond hair and a brief beard,” within the AlertSU. He was sporting a grey shirt and spherical framed eyeglasses on the time of the incident.

Sit-in members expressed profound disappointment relating to the dearth of response from the College. The College despatched an AlertSU message roughly eight hours after the incident. 

“Our sit-in has tirelessly campaigned for the College administration to acknowledge the sample of racism and Islamophobia at Stanford,” they wrote.

Mostofi wrote on behalf of the College, “we proceed to induce our group to interact with respect for each other’s humanity, as members of our group focus on deeply divergent viewpoints on this difficult time frame.”