Incidents discussed at forum

Students expressed outrage, uncertainty and fright regarding five anti-Semitic incidents reported in Community House, a section of the Quadrangle, at an open forum last night in Ashurst Lounge. In the last six weeks, students living on the first floor of Cleemann found three swastikas and two signs, which read "The Jewish God Eats Human Shit," taped to the fire door in their hall. The forum was moderated by Senior Faculty-in-Residence Peter Conn, an English professor. In attendance were Penn Hillel Director Jeremy Brochin, Penn Newman Center Director Father Tom McGann, Director of Residential Living Gigi Simeone, Residential Living staff member Zoila Airall, University Counseling Director Ilene Rosenstein and Assistant Dean of Residence Judith Hillard. About 20 students showed up to discuss the events and the effect they have had on them and the entire community. Nursing freshman Bonnie Sherman, a hall resident who discovered four of the incidents, said they would be "less troubling if they were in five different places." "I see it as directed at someone on our hall," she added. Sherman's roommate, College freshman Jennifer Burke, a Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer, said everyone on the hall is "feeling jumpy." "We're really apprehensive right now," she said, adding that every time the fire door opens, she looks out the peephole of her door. "There's only four rooms on the hall and there is a room with two Orthodox Jews right across from the fire door [where everything was found]," Burke added. "[Therefore], it feels a lot more personal." Students also said the perpetrators' anonymity bothered them. But College freshman and Community House resident Harrlyn Bohensky said it might make the residents more frightened if the perpetrator was known. Hillard said everyone involved "experienced a sense of outrage that this could happen in 1994 at the University of Pennsylvania." Students and staff also discussed the police reports which were filed and the publicity of the incidents. Students said they are now worried about publicizing the incident. "I don't want death threats or things like what happened at [W.E.B.] DuBois House in the fall to happen to me," Sherman said. But McGann advocated telling the community about all incidents, including anti-Semitic ones. And Simeone said University Police should be called in every case. University Police officer Gary Heller, who came in mid-way through the meeting, said he was doing "special checks" of Cleemann. "Whenever we hear about racist incidents at DuBois or here, we take it personally," he said. "It's our job to make you feel safe and to try to catch whoever is doing this. We're going to do whatever we can." According to University Police Sergeant Keith Christian, the surveillance, which officers conducted yesterday, will continue on each shift today and in the near future. A Cleemann resident, who does not live in the wing and wished to remain anonymous for fear of being harassed, said the police presence bothered her. But, Rosenstein said police may "make the perpetrators nervous too." Heller said the incidents may be a violation of Pennsylvania law and there has been talk that the incidents fall under the current Racial Harassment Policy. Judicial Inquiry Officer Steven Blum said it "would be too speculative" to determine whether the swastikas and signs would be considered racial harassment under the outline of the policy.