Columbia protesters called janitors ‘Jew-lovers’ during 2024 building takeover, complaint says

Anti-Israel activists at Columbia University in New York derided janitors as “Jew-lovers,” during protests on campus last year, according to a discrimination complaint.

The incidents occurred last spring as the activists held a protest encampment at the center of Columbia’s campus and took over Hamilton Hall, a campus building.

The janitors filed a discrimination complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year. The commission was working on an investigation last month, according to records obtained today by The Times of Israel. The investigation was first reported today by The New York Post.

The civil rights complaint that sparked the investigation says the two janitors, Lester Wilson and Mariano Torres, began finding graffiti, including swastikas, on blackboards in Hamilton Hall in November 2023, shortly after the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel.

Torres says he found and was forced to clean swastikas “dozens of times,” on a near-daily basis, in Hamilton Hall classrooms. He began throwing away chalk in the classrooms so the vandals would not be able to leave graffiti, and was reprimanded for doing so.

Neither Torres nor Wilson are Jewish. Torres says that, as a Latino, he felt the swastikas were aimed at him as well as at Jews on campus.

Last spring, the janitors started finding people hiding in Hamilton Hall at night when the building was closed, and found doors left ajar after hours.

The two janitors were in Hamilton Hall when the protesters invaded the building in April and say they feared for their lives.

Torres says masked protesters surrounded him while he was cleaning and blocked him from reaching another colleague.

Torres says that the takeover appeared coordinated, with two masked demonstrators giving orders to the protesters and directing them around the building. The rioters brought supplies including water, food, mattresses, tape, and rope into the building as others put vending machines in front of the building’s entrances.

Two protesters trailed Torres around the building, and a group of masked individuals surrounded him, repeatedly calling him a “Jew-lover,” the complaint says.

One man threatened Torres, telling him, “I’m going to get 20 guys up here to fuck you up,” according to the complaint. Another protester repeatedly hit him in the back.

During the Hamilton Hall takeover, Wilson says in his complaint, the protesters shoved him, rammed furniture into him, and trapped him. When he asked the protesters to release him, they repeatedly called him a “Jew-lover,” “Jew-worker,” and “Zionist,” the complaint says.

During the encampment, Wilson says he saw a colleague cleaning up after the protesters, who called the other janitor a “Jew-lover” and “Zionist.” One protester said the other janitor was “working for the Jew-man,” the complaint says.

The complaint claims Columbia administrators failed to take action against the protesters in the lead-up to the building takeover.

Torres and Wilson suffered physical injuries and psychological trauma that has prevented them from returning to work, the complaint says.