Stanford University Student Photographed Reading Hitler Manifesto

A Stanford University student was photographed reading Adolf Hitler’s memoir, a campus newspaper reported on Sunday.

An image of the student was circulated on Snapchat, The Stanford Daily, the university’s campus daily, said. The incident prompted a student to file a “Protected Identity Harm” report, a specific kind of complaint that addresses instances in which “a community member experiences harm because of who they are and how they show up in the world.”

“Swift action was taken by the leadership in the residential community where both the individuals who posted and the one pictured are members,” Hillel at Stanford rabbis Jessica Kirschner and Laurie Hahn Tapper said on Sunday in an email quoted by The Stanford Daily. “It can be upsetting to hear about incidents like this…Jewish people belong at Stanford and deserve to be respected by our peers.”

The Stanford Daily added that Hillel at Stanford is leading discussions with the team of the residential building in which the photograph was taken to discuss “its impact on the community.”

Stanford University is currently undertaking several efforts aimed at increasing the campus’ inclusion of and support for the Jewish community. In October, it issued a bombshell report admitting that it limited Jewish enrollment in the mid-twentieth century.

The report was the work of a panel the university convened in January to investigate claims published in August 2021 by Cornell University postdoctoral fellow Charles Petersen that the university had once implemented a quota system for Jewish students.