Swastikas

In response to large swastikas drawn on three Jewish: Law Students Association (JLSA) posters last month, third-year law student David M. Mirchin has embarked on a small campaign of education.

The swastikas, drawn in magic marker, are the second such display of anti-Semitism at the Law School this year, and Mirchin said yesterday that he is upset. "I feel that a lot of the inhibitions about being insensitive to Jews that existed for a long time after World War II no longer exist," he said, adding. "In a certain way, anti-Semitism is okay."

Last fall, when a swastika was etched with a pen into the JLSA bulletin board, Dean of Students Mary D. Upton put notices in Law School publications deploring the action, and threatening disciplinary action against those found responsible.

But last month Mirchin decided to deal with the problem more directly, "to let people know that in 1983 at the Law School these things are happening."

To bring the issue to students' attention, Mirchin got 18 law-student organizations to co-sponsor a short letter condemning the vandalism to The Crimson and the Harvard Law Record, which will appear in both papers tomorrow.

Mirchin is not optimistic his campaign will solve the problem. "The roots of anti-Semitism are very deep, and I'm not sure how to eradicate them," he said yesterday. "It might be impossible."