The Sklut Hillel Center hosted its monthly bagel brunch this morning. While the bagel brunch is a recurring event that allows the community to come together, diversity and inclusion was emphasized at today’s gathering. The event follows an incident where discriminatory messages were written on the board in Koury Athletic Center.
Associate Vice President and adviser to the Hillel Center Jeff Stein commented on the need to “condemn something like that and be as transparent as possible” so that Elon University as a community can be inclusive and welcoming.
The timeliness of the condemnation of the incident by university administration was of concern to students. Vice President for Student Life, Jon Dooley, sent an email to students Saturday afternoon to condemn the racist and anti-Semitic messages written on Thursday night.
As a black student, junior Holly Miranda felt targeted by the messages and felt that they opposed the values of being an inclusive community that Elon prides itself on. Miranda said Dooley’s response could have been timelier. Junior Jacob Sebiri believes that aside from emails the Elon administration should “actually do something about it," as he was sad and upset that incidents like this take place on campus.
In Jon Dooley’s email to students he states that Student Life and Inclusive Community Development are “investigating and responding” to the incident.