Antisemitic banners prompt investigation by UC Davis campus police
University of California, Davis police are investigating a hate incident involving antisemitic statements being displayed on a campus overpass over the weekend.
Chancellor Gary S. May in a statement wrote that on Sunday, “four white men wearing black clothing and masks displayed a banner over the Highway 113 bicycle overpass that contained racist anti-Semitic statements.”
“We recently received a report indicating that a similar incident occurred last weekend,” May’s Sunday statement continued. The UC Davis Police Department determined Sunday’s action to be “a hate incident of concern to our campus community.”
Photos posted to social media showed two banners hung from the overpass. One read: “The Holocaust is an anti-white lie.” The other read: “Communism is Jewish.”
“We are sickened that anyone would invest any time in such cowardly acts of hate and intimidation,” May wrote. “They have no place here.”
Congregation Bet Haverim, a Davis synagogue about a mile north of the university campus, wrote in a Facebook post Sunday evening that it has reached out to the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region for assistance in reporting the incident to the Anti-Defamation League and the FBI.
“Seeing such hate so close to our community is undoubtedly upsetting,” Congregation Bet Haverim leaders wrote.
In September 2019, May said campus police were investigating after “neo-Nazi and white supremacy” flyers were posted on publicly accessible noticeboards at several different locations on the UC Davis main campus.
In fall 2018, flyers calling Jewish people “anti-American” appeared at at least three lecture halls at the campus.
The university has a website and online portal for reporting hate or bias incidents, reporthateandbias.ucdavis.edu. Tips and complaints can be filed anonymously online, or by phone at 530-747-3865 or 916-734-2255.
This story was originally published August 29, 2022 at 8:49 AM with the headline "Antisemitic banners prompt investigation by UC Davis campus police."
