PORTLAND, Ore. — Undergraduate students at Lewis and Clark College woke up to graffiti-covered walls Monday morning on their walk to class. It's hard to miss the protests and messages on social media around the Israel-Hamas war, though some students never thought those messages would show up on their walk to class.
“My identity in a religious way is being attacked,” said a Lewis & Clark senior who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
One triggered the Jewish student KGW talked with. He said the graffiti makes him feel unwelcome on campus.
“I’m Jewish so, kind of sucks … I’ve been to Israel, I have family and friends there, it's hard. It's a really complicated situation … not that saying, 'Free Palestine' is anti-semitic — it's not. But what goes around with it and what people have been posting and all that kind of stuff gives off that I’m not really welcome here,” he said.
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In an email to students Monday morning, the college's emergency management director said campus security found two people spray-painting buildings just after 2 a.m. but they ran away. A bridge and a few college-owned vehicles were also tagged.
As it turns out, graffiti is somewhat common on campus. The senior KGW talked with said he’s seen it every year for four years.
“Every Indigenous People's Day or whenever there's some sort of thing, someone goes and puts graffiti on something about giving the land back or changing the name. This time they just added Palestine,” he said.
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Because of that, he wishes the school would do more to support him and his Jewish friends.
“Right after it happened, I was kind of waiting on the school to like say anything and it took them a while … it's all about accepting people, and then the moment that my group gets any sort of criticism. They just turn their back and that really hurts,” he said.
In the email to students, the college said they’re doing their best to expedite clean up, but since there was so much of it removing all the graffiti will take some time. Until then students will have to face it while on campus. We've reached out to the school for comments but haven’t heard back.
