(JTA) –  A Jewish student at Tufts University found a swastika affixed to the door of his dorm room. The swastika was discovered Sunday night, Sept. 15, when the student returned to his room, according to a letter Tuesday, Sept. 17, from President Anthony Monaco to the school community. Monaco called the incident a “cowardly act of hatred and ignorance.” “It is a direct attack on our Jewish community and an affront to our values as an institution,” he wrote. Campus police and the school’s Office of Equal Opportunity are investigating, he said.

Monaco noted the incident at the beginning of a scheduled address on the suburban Boston campus by Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt, who spoke Sept. 17 to a standing-room-only crowd about the rise in antisemitic rhetoric in the country. Lipstadt, whose most recent book is Antisemitism: Here and Now, praised the university’s unambiguous and forthright response. This was an attempt to intimidate a Jewish student, Rabbi Tzvi Backman of the Rohr Chabad House that serves Tufts students, told JTA. “What will eliminate things like this is not being intimidated and expressing our Jewish identity in as many ways as possible,” Backman said. In response to the incident, Tufts Hillel held a community gathering co-hosted with the Provost’s Office and the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs.