A window of Texas Hillel was broken Saturday in an act of vandalism currently being investigated by the UT and Austin Police Departments.
Texas Hillel, a Jewish student center located on San Antonio Street in West Campus, organizes social activism and community volunteer events for UT’s Jewish community. Their window was broken at 2 a.m. Saturday. The organization reported the incident to UTPD and APD later that morning, said Margo Sack, director of Jewish student life at Texas Hillel.
UTPD, APD and University administrators are currently investigating whether the vandalism was specifically meant to target the Jewish community, Sack said.
“We hope swift action is taken to hold those responsible to account,” Texas Hillel said in a statement to The Daily Texan. “We continue to work with our campus and community partners to ensure all Jewish students feel safe and welcome on campus, and that incidents like this do not happen again. Texas Hillel is here to engage and connect with any students or faculty who are impacted by this incident, and we welcome members of our community to join us in developing proactive ways to process and address these issues.”
UT President Gregory Fenves released a statement regarding the weekend’s incident, citing last week’s town hall on campus.
“I am extremely troubled by the vandalism at Texas Hillel,” Fenves said in a statement to The Daily Texan. “The University will assist Austin police as they investigate and determine if this was an act of hate against Jewish students. As the UT community made clear at last week’s town hall, acts of hate — whether posters targeting Muslims and immigrants or a rock thrown at Hillel — have no place here. We will do everything we can to support our students who were affected by this.”
The investigation by UTPD, APD and University administrators is still ongoing, Sack said.