SEATTLE — University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce is calling on a pro-Palestinian student encampment to be dismantled after multiple buildings on the Seattle campus were tagged with what she called "offensive graffiti."
Some of the graffiti was "quite clearly both antisemitic and violent," according to a message from Cauce.
"Much to my dismay, given the relatively cordial tone of many of our discussions, the [encampment] representatives also said the new graffiti is an intentional escalation to compel the University to agree to their demands," Cauce wrote.
Representatives inside the encampment's designated media tent told KING 5 they weren't ready to comment but would likely have a statement on Thursday.
The encampment was set up in response to the war in the Middle East. Protesters are specifically targeting the university's connection to Boeing because of the company's defense unit and military work. According to its website, Boeing has maintained offices in Israel since 1969. It has a corporate office in Tel Aviv. Reporting from Bloomberg found Boeing rushed thousands of GPS-guided bomb kits to Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas Attack.
That day, Hamas killed 1,139 people and took 253 hostages. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, including 25,000 women and children. Thousands more are injured. More than a million Palestinians are displaced. This is what's spurred college students into action.
Since the encampment has established and grown, so have the demands, according to Cauce. Most recently, protesters have demanded the creation of a new department that would have an "anti-Zionist" litmus test for faculty hiring.
"Many of these demands, especially the most recent, are contrary to academic freedom and/or to state or federal law," Cauce wrote.
Cauce notes the university's response to calls for change "will not be based on an encampment."
Multiple organizations have also spoken out against the graffiti.
"I definitely think this is an escalation," said Miri Cypers, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Pacific Northwest. "Committing property damage and vandalism [with] hateful language is crossing the line into unacceptable behavior."
The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and Jewish Community Relations Council released a statement that said the community is "deeply concerned" about the vandalism overnight Tuesday.
"Our community is outraged and heartbroken by the experience that our Jewish students are living through on campus," the statement reads, in part. "Jewish students shouldn’t be forced to walk to class surrounded by antisemitic graffiti and chants, which at times have included death threats against Jews and the praising of the worst attack perpetrated against the Jewish community since the Holocaust."
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