College

Yale Students Unite In Beautiful Response To Swastikas Drawn On Campus Sidewalk

Yale Students Unite In Beautiful Response To Swastikas Drawn On Campus Sidewalk
By 

Contributor

|
Open Image Modal

When Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway penned an Oct. 13 email to students about swastikas found chalked onto a campus sidewalk, he implored students to stand together as a community. "There is no room for hate in this house," Holloway wrote.

Yale senior Javier Cienfuegos and friends took those words to heart and turned the graffiti's message completely on its head, creating a powerful mural communicating support for Jewish students and diversity in the Ivy League school's community.

(Story continues below.)

Students adding to the mural.

Though school officials had the swastikas mostly scrubbed from the sidewalk by Oct. 13, some faint outlines remained. So Cienfuegos and fraternity brothers William Genova and Sebastian Medina-Tayac set to work that night outside the freshman residence hall where the graffiti had been drawn, washing away the remaining outlines with dish soap and Lysol.

Word of their effort spread via a Facebook post by Cienfuegos.

Soon, a large group was covering the sidewalk with words of love and support. Hearts, peace signs and Stars of David dotted the pavement. At their center was the blue Yale "Y" and Holloway's words from the email in big bubble letters: "There's no room for H8 in this house."


The students' mural.

"I think it was my way of telling people that I don't care if it was an idiotic prank or a hoax, this kind of thing isn't okay on my campus," Cienfuegos told The Huffington Post.

"It shows how much Yalies appreciate the diversity that this campus has," Genova said of the effort. "At the end of the day, Yale really celebrates that, and students really come together. We don't just respect it, we encourage it, and we thrive off this."

He says that as the re-chalking of the sidewalk stretched into early morning, as many as 75 students came and added to the mural. According to Cienfuegos, so many people joined in that they had to get more chalk midway through.

"Our community felt a contagious wave of love, and it swept across the entirety of Durfee's walkway," wrote Cienfuegos in a Facebook post about the finished mural. "We will turn their hate into love, and we invite all Yalies, whoever you are, to join our crusade."

Check out more photos of the students' powerful mural below.

H/T Business Insider

Our 2024 Coverage Needs You

As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.

Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.

to keep our news free for all.

Support HuffPost

Before You Go

Campus Pride's 2014 Top 50 LGBT-friendly Colleges & Universities
Brown University, Providence, RI(01 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 8,454In-State Tuition: $41,328Out-of-State Tuition: $41,328 (credit:Denis Jr. Tangney via Getty Images)
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY(02 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 20,400In-State Tuition: $25,185Out-of-State Tuition: $41,325 (credit:Kenneth C. Zirkel via Getty Images)
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH(03 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 4,000In-State Tuition: $45,000Out-of-State Tuition: $45,000 (credit:Randy Wells via Getty Images)
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN(04 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 45,000In-State Tuition: $5,825Out-of-State Tuition: $8,325 (credit:Joe Mamer via Getty Images)
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA(05 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 6,600In-State Tuition: $47,215Out-of-State Tuition: $47,215 (credit:John Coletti via Getty Images)
Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH(06 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 2,930In-State Tuition: $44,512Out-of-State Tuition: $44,512 (credit:By Daderot (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Portland State University, Portland, OR(07 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 27,000In-State Tuition: $2,178Out-of-State Tuition: $6,236 (credit:By Visitor7 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ(08 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 7,813In-State Tuition: $40,170Out-of-State Tuition: $40,170 (credit:Barry Winiker via Getty Images)
Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ(09 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 37,145In-State Tuition: $12,581Out-of-State Tuition: $24,338 (credit:By Umdet (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH(10 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 52,338In-State Tuition: $8,679Out-of-State Tuition: $21,918 (credit:By Michael Barera (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Stanford University, Stanford, CA(11 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 19,000In-State Tuition: $45,000Out-of-State Tuition: $45,000 (credit:Png-Studio via Getty Images)
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY(12 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 19,082In-State Tuition: $33,830Out-of-State Tuition: $33,830 (credit:Denis Jr. Tangney via Getty Images)
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA(13 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 6,500In-State Tuition: $45,240Out-of-State Tuition: $45,240 (credit:By Tulane Public Relations (Business School Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA(14 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 45,194In-State Tuition: $15,500Out-of-State Tuition: $27,206 (credit:Something Original at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons)
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA(15 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 36,142In-State Tuition: $12,834Out-of-State Tuition: $22,878 (credit:Davel5957 via Getty Images)
University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA(16 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 37,000In-State Tuition: $12,000Out-of-State Tuition: $24,000 (credit:By b r e n t (UCLA) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL(17 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 59,740In-State Tuition: $2,948Out-of-State Tuition: $10,461 (credit:By Kelly Daacon from Orlando, FL [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL(18 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 15,000In-State Tuition: $47,139Out-of-State Tuition: $47,139 (credit:Damianno via Getty Images)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI(19 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 40,025In-State Tuition: $4,767Out-of-State Tuition: $14,557 (credit:John Weise via Getty Images)
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA(20 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 40,000In-State Tuition: $45,602Out-of-State Tuition: $45,602 (credit:By Not given [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Washington State University, Pullman, WA(21 of21)
Open Image Modal
Size: 26,000In-State Tuition: $11,386Out-of-State Tuition: $24,468 (credit:By Kearby (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Suggest a correction
|
Submit a tip