New
Brunswick, NJ – Sara Rosen entered her room to find a 2.5-foot swastika
taped to her ceiling on the night of Jan. 15.
The
Jewish School of Arts and Sciences senior said she felt threatened and
immediately called the police.
When
police arrived at the scene, they began questioning Rosen about her
relationship with her roommates, one of whom was responsible for the swastika,
she said.
The
roommate, a School of Engineering senior who could not be reached for comment
before press time, had intended for the swastika to be a display of his
Buddhist faith, said Kai Rau, a School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
senior.
“I was fairly surprised, because why would
there be a swastika on the ceiling,” she said. “Then I came to realize (my)
friend is a Buddhist.”
Before
being appropriated by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, the swastika was a
religious symbol sacred to the Buddhist faith, signifying abundance and
eternity, Rau said.
But
Rosen was unconvinced.
“One of the roommates decided to claim that
they randomly decided to put up a buddhist peace symbol,” she said to a Rutgers
University Police Department (RUPD) officer. “Is that something you really
believe based on everything that has gone on here?”
RUPD
officers conducted an investigation of the events by interviewing Rosen, her
roommates and other witnesses, said University spokesperson Jeffrey Tolvin.
Details
about the case were forwarded to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, who
determined “there was not probable cause to charge the suspect with a bias
crime,” Tolvin said in an email.
The
Office of Student Conduct carried out a trial. During the trial, Rosen’s
roommate was put in temporary housing on Busch campus.
Following
a judicial review, he was removed from University housing.
“I’m pretty upset with the way Rutgers
handled the situation,” psychology major Sara Rosen said in a draft of a
letter she intends to send to the school newspaper, The Daily Targum, and which she posted on Facebook next
to a photo of the swastika in question.
