A Jewish fraternity house at California Polytechnic State University was vandalized with swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti.
The incident happened at the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) house during Shabbat, the weekly Jewish religious observance that lasts from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday.
“Last week, on January 27th, we honored the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished and others affected by the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in 2021, antisemitism is still the number one cause of hate crimes in the United State,” the organization wrote on Instagram. “This morning, a hateful group of people committed an antisemitic hate crime on our chapter house.”
AEPi posted an update on Monday asking for help raising $1,300 to clean up the property and install a new security camera system for the house.
The GoFundMe skyrocketed, raking in more than $21,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.
“We have received a lot of positive attention, and would like to put that energy towards a good cause,” the fraternity wrote.
The group said all additional donations will be split between Israel’s memorial to Holocaust victims, Yad Vashem, and the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of San Luis Obispo.
According to a campuswide message by university President Jeffrey Armstrong and other officials Saturday evening, the incident was reported to the San Luis Obispo Police Department and an investigation is underway.
“Let us be perfectly clear: behavior that promotes any form of hate and seeks to make members of our community feel unsafe and unwelcome — especially in their own home – has absolutely no place in our community,” Cal Poly officials said in the statement.
While residents of the house began removing the graffiti, the school’s administration noted that “the emotional scars will last much longer.
“As members of the community, we are struggling to comprehend the heinous nature of this crime, alongside our Jewish community,” the statement read.
On Monday, police told The San Luis Obispo Tribune that they had no solid leads in the case.
In an editorial, the newspaper called for anyone with knowledge of the crime to step forward.
“It’s especially disturbing that another hate incident has been linked to Cal Poly, given the events of the past few years. Those included students wearing blackface, holding parties with racist themes and posting racist messages on a free speech wall,” the editorial board wrote. “But without knowing who the perpetrators are — and again, that’s something we may never find out — it’s unfair to assume these were Cal Poly students, or any students, for that matter.”