The Forward - News that Matters to American Jews Temple U. rower says she will quit team and transfer because of antisemitic harassment
Shortly after their first year at Temple University began this past summer, Sasha Westrick said, her roommate began teasing her about being Jewish. Westrick said the roommate made comments about her dressing up for Shabbat and believing in God, and once asked her for money because she said she thought Jewish people had a lot of it.
After the High Holidays, things got worse. The two were in a study hall together, Westrick said, when she got a text from the roommate’s number with a picture of Westrick, seemingly taken minutes before and from a few feet away, the words “I hate Jews” emblazoned across the bottom.
Westrick, who is 18, said she looked up and asked “Did you send this?”
“Yeah,” she recounted the roommate replying. “It was almost like she wanted to see how I would react.”
Temple University freshman Sasha Westrick received this text from her roommate on Sept. 16, 2021. It shows Westrick and typed across the bottom of the photo is the phrase “I hate Jews.”
Shocked and rattled, she brought the matter to one of her rowing coaches — both young women had been recruited to Temple’s team.
The coach asked if she had any evidence, Westrick said, and didn’t seem upset by what she had just been told.
In the months since, Westrick has moved out of the dorm room and filed a complaint with the Temple University police, which passed it on to university officials. The school conducted an investigation, produced a 71-page report and held a hearing last month; it is unclear what discipline, if any, the roommate faced.
Dissatisfied by the response and feeling isolated, Westrick stopped going to rowing practice and plans to transfer to another university in the fall because she does not feel Temple is a good place to be Jewish and “doesn’t share the values I have.” Her mother, Amy Westrick, said the family is considering filing a lawsuit.
“I work with refugees, homeless people. I was taught from a very young age that you need to be kind and accepting of other people,” Sasha Westrick said in an interview on Friday. “I don’t get that feeling from Temple.”
The coach could not be reached for comment. The Forward could not find an email address, phone number or social media accounts to contact the roommate, and therefore is not naming her, since she has not had an opportunity to respond.
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A spokesman for Temple, a public university of 35,000 in Philadelphia, released a statement on Friday in response to the Forward’s request for comment, saying that “the incident has been addressed and appropriate remedies have been applied.” It condemned antisemitism and other discrimination, said harassment and threats are not tolerated, and encouraged people to report any violations of those policies.
“We prioritize fostering a campus climate where all students can live and study without fear, hate and intimidation,” it said.
“The students have been separated, and they no longer share living space and are no longer together in a team setting” the statement added, citing privacy laws that barred the school from sharing more details. “Additionally, we have been actively engaged in supporting the impacted students since we became aware of the situation.”
Rabbi Baruch S. Kantor, who runs the Chabad center on campus where Westrick is a regular at services, said the situation was “very concerning to us” but also an aberration......
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Forgive me, I'm just awed to death by Ms Westrick's brazenness. After all these decades of force-feeding 'tolerance' and 'diversity' to children -- and further years of polls finding they don't know what 'the Holocaust' is -- it's blinkin' miracle.
Unless, that is, it's just more Hegelian theatrics produced, scripted and acted entirely by the Chosen (cf. Schindler's List) --which would also be real news:
www.americanlastnames.us/last-names/Jewish/W/W-30.html
Again I've ript off the Forward non-subscriber limitations by clicking for the article and doing Ctrl-A-C before the ban pops up to paste here. Extremely terrible that campuses host Chabad groups!
vnnforum.com/tags.php? tag=chabad
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Click for Full Text!