May 14, 2021
The Lewiston Police Department (LPD) has referred graffiti written in chalk on the campus of Bates College to the Maine attorney general, who is investigating the case as a possible hate crime. The Bates Leftist Coalition (BLC) shared pictures of the graffitied phrases, “Free Palestine,” “Stop Ethnic Cleansing,” “Israel is killing innocent people” and “[expletive] Zionist Israel.”
According to the Associated Press, Gwen Lexow, Bates’ director of Title IX and civil rights compliance, wrote in an email to students that said she heard members of the Bates community “expressing deep concern about the impact of the language contained in the flyers and graffiti, particularly on Jewish members of our campus community.”