Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
On Sunday morning, a Swarthmore resident came across offensive chalk graffiti in front of and inside the Sparrow House, a wooden treehouse near the Swarthmore Rutledge School playground. The graffiti depicted swastikas, racial and religious slurs, people’s names, and phone numbers in addition to a number of other offensive images.
In a post to the private Swarthmore section of the nextdoor.com social network, the resident claimed to have notified police.
A long-time school board member told The Daily Gazette that the Swarthmore Rutledge School’s custodial staff was notified immediately and instructed to wash the graffiti off early Monday morning. However, most of the chalkings had been already been smudged by unknown means by the time The Daily Gazette arrived to take photos Sunday evening.
The past few weeks have seen similar graffiti found at McCabe Library, the Crum Woods, and Haverford High School’s tennis court. It is unclear if any of these incidents, including the graffiti found at the Sparrow House, are related to one another.
Featured image by Natalie Flores ’19
