Anti-Israel vandalism in Leavey Library
Someone tried to scrape ‘Israel’ off the map and wrote ‘no good’ above it
Anti-Israel graffiti was found on vintage globe, a $20,000 gift made by Curtis C. Roseman and Charles C. Roseman, in Leavey Library approximately 20 feet away from the Shoah Foundation entrance on July 7.
The perpetrator attempted to scrape the “Israel” lettering off the map and wrote “no good” above it. There is now speculation by some that other cities on the globe could have been scraped off, but as no one can determine how long the message has been there and because the globe is relatively old, it is hard to tell.
The USC Office of Religious Life is currently conducting an investigation into the incident with the help of the Department of Public Safety.
In an email interview with The Tab USC, Varun Soni, the Dean of Religious Life, shared his thoughts on the incident and prejudice at the University.
“I believe that higher education is the best way to combat this type of discrimination, and that is the opportunity and responsibility we have at USC,” Soni said.
“Whenever we have an incident like this, I’m heartbroken, but I’m also encouraged by the overwhelming and unequivocal condemnation of these incidents by our university community.”
Lyette Merriman, Assistant Vice Provost for student affairs, said that it is likely that they will not find the perpetrator.
“I’ll be honest I wish we knew who did this,” she said. “But we do not. The library does not have any cameras over there and we don’t have any idea how long it was there.”
The incident was first brought to the attention of Student Affairs and Soni Merriman said. After it was reported, Soni dealt with the incident by calling the Anti-Defamation League to repair the damage done to the globe and notifying DPS.
According to Merriman, DPS has detectives on the case and hopes that they will be able to find who committed this act of Anti-Semitism. In addition to performing their own investigation DPS is seeking outside support from the Los Angeles Police Department.
In March, hacker Andrew Auernheimer, who goes by “Weev”, took advantage of security breaches in University printers to print swastikas along with white supremacist messages.