This illustration is based on a photo taken for a story regarding antisemitic stickers found near and around campus in November 2022. Credit: Abby Fricke | Design Editor
As Shayna Kling prepared to lead Friday night prayers with Ohio State University Hillel for Shabbat, she remembered a sense of excitement for the opportunity to share this special experience with her friends on Zoom.
“I had two roommates, and I was like ‘Hey, you guys can watch me do my thing, and sing and lead services,’” Kling, then a second-year in psychology, said. “You always ask me lots of questions about Judaism, so join the call and see what happens.”
Hillel is a Jewish student center that is part of the larger Hillel International network. Shabbat is the day of rest and weekly observance of God’s completion of creation celebrated by the Jewish people and starts Friday night, according to the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund.
It was Oct. 16, 2020, and COVID-19 public health orders required religious services and other public gatherings to be moved online.
The Zoom service started out like any other, but halfway through, Kling said, it took a turn.
“Someone got the link and started screaming,” Kling said. “I don’t really remember specifically, but just a lot of screaming, slurs, and [they] started typing in a box different things in all caps about Hitler –– and they also somehow took over the annotate tool on the Zoom and started drawing swastikas on the screen.”
According to reports from the University Police Department on the incident obtained by The Lantern, the call originated off campus. Because of that, the report stated the university’s Office of the Chief Information Officer could not proceed with an investigation. No one was arrested or charged.
“It just felt very invasive because this is supposed to be that safe space,” Kling said. “And it was just completely obliterated.”
Fourth-year in psychology Shayna Kling leads services in Israel as a part of a trip with Camp Wise in June 2022.
Though incidents like these — classified as hate crimes under federal reporting requirements — are rare, Ohio State stands out among Big Ten universities for how many occurred on campus.
Ohio State ranks No. 1 in the conference with a rate of .535 hate crimes per 1,000 students, according to a Lantern analysis of Clery Act data. There were 33 total reported hate crimes from 2018-21, the most recent year for which data was available.
Of all hate crimes reported to the university from 2018-21, only one ended in an arrest.
The Clery Act requires colleges and universities that receive federal funding to record campus crime data, offer support to victims of violence and publicly outline what it has done to keep students, faculty and staff safe, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
These reports, characterized as hate crimes under the Clery Act, cover a wide range of issues — including Zoom bombings similar to what Kling experienced, uttered slurs, vandalism and assaults.
The University of Michigan had the second-highest rate of 0.378 per 1,000 students, with 18 reported crimes over that same time period. Michigan State University had the lowest rate and a total of two reported crimes in the same time frame.
Enrollment numbers were gathered from the universities listed above.
Police records of reported hate crimes at Ohio State show a mix of incidents, split among three different categories. These include 15 reports of incidents involving race and ethnicity, 14 incidents involving gender and sexual orientation and four involving religion.
The incidents include a February 2021 Black Wellness Month event hosted by Ohio State’s then-Multicultural Center, titled “Fear of a Black Planet,” that featured a Zoom panel of experts speaking on the evolution of hip-hop music.
Police reports state seven guests disrupted the meeting with profanity, racist comments and pornographic images, as well as images of firearms. They were kicked out of the Zoom meeting a few minutes later.
Reports also include staff members at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity receiving threatening emails with racist language between November 2020 and May 2021.
The Lantern contacted the victims who reported these incidents but was unable to interview them.
Keesha Mitchell, associate vice president for the Ohio State Office of Institutional Equity, said the numbers are part of a national trend and can be chalked up to Ohio State’s location and size.
“It is concerning, and we’re seeing a national trend as well,” Mitchell said. “We are one of the largest universities in the country, we are situated in an urban environment, and we have put a lot of resources into ensuring that a lot of people are reporting.”
University spokesperson Ben Johnson disputed The Lantern’s analysis and said The Lantern should add employees, campus visitors and medical center patients to its metric. This addition would lower Ohio State’s rate compared to all other campuses where only students were taken into account, but Ohio State still gathered the highest number of reports in the Big Ten.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. saw a 13 percent increase in hate crimes between 2019-20.
More recently, concerns involving hate on and off campus have increasingly been focused on antisemitism.
Clery Act reports reviewed by The Lantern do not include incidents occurring within the last year. This includes antisemitic and racial slurs found spray painted in a Hitchcock Hall stairwell Nov. 14, 2022. The hate crime included a swastika, cross-out star of David and other antisemitic and racial slurs. The Clery Act report detailing incidents that occurred this year will come out in October.
University President Kristina M. Johnson said in a Nov. 15, 2022 universitywide email that “there is no room for hate in our home” in response to the two slurs.
Before the Hitchcock Hall graffiti was discovered, antisemitic stickers and drawings were found south of the Park-Stradley residence hall as well as on North High Street near the Ohio Union and Sullivant Hall.
These on-campus incidents came after rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, posted in an Oct. 14, 2022, tweet he thinks the Jewish community has tried to “blackball” whoever opposes their agenda. In a now removed tweet, he also said “when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” West later praised Hitler in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Jones’ radio show Dec. 1, 2022.
Kyrie Irving, NBA All-Star and player for the Dallas Mavericks, also promoted a 2014 documentary titled “Hebrews to N******: Wake Up Black America,” on social media in October 2022, which contained misinformation and racist stereotypes about the Jewish community.
Joel Marcovitch, president and CEO of JewishColumbus — which aims to enrich the Jewish community in Columbus, according to its website — said the increase in antisemitism is “frightening.”
“If you dig down deeper into the figures, you’ll see that the majority of those are aimed at the Jewish community,” Marcovitch said. “It’s incredibly scary, for a lot of those members of our community who escaped antisemitism in Europe, both in the Holocaust and around the world, who come here to have a peaceful existence.”
Marcovitch said Ohio State’s rate of hate crimes is “saddening.”
“The acts of individuals or small groups on campus are affecting, really, the delicate balance of equality and equilibrium for folks,” Marcovitch said. “It’s something that should be monitored and taken seriously, and we trust the university is doing everything in its power in order to stamp out these activities.”
Sarah Deitsch, program director for the Schottenstein Chabad House — a Jewish center where students can explore all degrees or backgrounds of observance — said she also was saddened by Ohio State’s rate of hate crimes.
“Ohio State — and college in general — is supposed to be a safe place for students to express their identities and to discover things they don’t know before they came to college, and to feel safe,” Deitsch said. “If that’s not a possibility, they’re really losing out on the fullest experience they can have in college.”
Not all crimes are reported.
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice, 42 percent of hate crime victims did not report their crimes to law enforcement between 2015-19.
Melissa Mayhan, deputy associate vice president and Title IX coordinator for the Office of Institutional Equity, said some victims may prefer to report the crime to someone they trust. Some people may also choose to report to police, Mayhan’s office, resident advisors or professors, she said.
“The university has really worked to foster a culture of reporting and there are many places that incidents can be reported to,” Mayhan said.
According to OIE’s website, all university community members — including human resource professionals, anyone who supervises faculty, staff and students or volunteers, a university chair or director and faculty member — must report all incidents of discrimination, harassment, sexual misconduct or prohibited relationships within five workdays of becoming aware of the information.
Mayhan said those reports are also evaluated pursuant to Clery Act standards. If so, the incidents are included in the university’s annual safety and security report.
The Zoom bombing incident during the February 2021 Black Wellness Month event, for example, didn’t meet the standards for further action. According to police reports, investigators later found the IP addresses used by the Zoom bombers and traced them back to Germany.
Because of this, University Police investigators recommended the case be closed, pending any information that would lead to an arrest, or further investigation.
On Sept. 2, 2020, police reports state a white student was walking along High Street, when 25-year-old Jarylle Walker, who was across the street, yelled a racial slur at him. The two exchanged words, before Walker crossed the street and punched the student in his face, breaking his jaw.
According to the same report, two other white students approached responding officers to report a similar incident, in which 29-year-old Tereishia Finney, approached them in her car on Chittenden Avenue. Finney drove alongside the students and yelled a racial slur several times, followed them west on Chittenden and grabbed one from behind by the backpack.
Walker and Finney, who are Black, were arrested and charged with assault and felonious assault. University officials later sent out a series of emails surrounding the incident, which later drew criticism and scrutiny by members of the university’s Black student body.
Accountability for a hate crime could go through a number of avenues, Mitchell said.
“There are many different resolutions, there are a number of different paths. We can take it through a full investigation up and through termination of an employee or dismissal of a student, depending on the severity of the incident,” Mitchell said. “We try to be as consistent in sanctioning as we can, given the underlying facts.”
Ben Johnson said the university has actively worked to improve the reporting process.
“We’ve worked really hard to streamline that process and to create a community where people understand that they can report safely, that they’ll get the support they need and that it’s a relatively simple process,” Ben Johnson said. “We’ve tried to eliminate the bureaucracy and make it easy for the victim to file a report and get the support they need –– and we have thousands –– possibly tens of thousands of required reporters across this campus.”
Kling said the experience made her stronger, not only in her faith but as a person.
“It definitely instilled more of a strength in me,” Kling said. “I think it made me feel stronger and wanting to continue with that –– I’m still going to do what I’m passionate about, like embracing these Jewish values of kindness and positivity, and healing the world I grew up with, and I’m not going to let that influence me.”
If you or anyone you know has experienced a hate crime on campus, you can report your experience online to the Office of University Compliance and Integrity. Hate crimes in Columbus can be reported to Columbus Police by calling 614-645-4545. Nationally, hate crimes can be reported by contacting the FBI’s national tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324).
