The images were disturbing: Three large red swastikas. A menacing warning that read, “I HATE BLACKS.” And a graphic threat of a school shooting.
The graffiti was found on a boys’ bathroom stall at an elite college preparatory high school in Manhattan last week. On Monday, the authorities said the vandalism was being investigated as a potential hate crime. The Police Department’s antiterrorism unit is also working with the school, and no arrests have been made.
The discovery has unnerved students and teachers at the institution, Beacon High School in Hell’s Kitchen. After the graffiti was found on Thursday, officers swept through the building. Some teenagers stepped out of classes to meet with counselors. Staff members fielded a flurry of worried calls and emails.
The jarring episode is the latest in a series that have rattled New York City high schools in recent months in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. A raucous demonstration at a Queens high school became a major flashpoint in the fall, after officials said a pro-Israel teacher was targeted by students. And this month in Brooklyn, several teachers reported antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents at their high school.
The principal at Beacon, Johnny A. Ventura, said in a series of emails to families that the school was working with the authorities to keep students safe. He called the screed in the bathroom “deplorable and unacceptable.”
“As a Black Latino, my first set of emotions upon hearing and seeing this was anger, and then sadness that someone at our school would choose to write this,” Mr. Ventura wrote. “We embrace diversity and inclusion at Beacon. A threat to one of us is a threat to all of us.”
Beacon is among the city’s larger high schools, with just under 1,500 students. The school has a sizable Jewish population, and about 15 percent of pupils are Black.
Outside the school on Monday morning, two police vehicles were stationed near the entrance as teenagers arrived. Several students said in interviews that the graffiti had been deeply unsettling.
“I was shocked,” said Ava Baranowski, 15, a sophomore.
Ava said she still felt “pretty safe” at school. To some students, “it seems like a joke. But it is really serious,” she said. “I think a lot of people were scared to come to school on Friday.”
Despite rising friction at a variety of schools around the city, several Beacon students said they had not seen major tensions among their peers. Some added that their history teachers had been discussing the war in class. Madeline, 16, a Beacon sophomore who declined to provide her last name, said her classmates seemed united and had been trying to look out for one another after the Oct. 7 attacks.
In January, in response to criticism that the Education Department was doing too little to address the war, the city’s schools chancellor, David C. Banks, said principals would receive mandatory training in March on “navigating difficult conversations.”
Nathaniel Styer, an Education Department spokesman, said the chancellor “has repeatedly made it clear that all forms of bias and hate — including antisemitism — have no place” in schools.
“Education and appropriate consequences must be at the center of addressing bigoted beliefs and misconceptions that students might bring to school with them,” he said.
As the graffiti investigation continues, Beacon will have an increased police presence. Students were barred this week from wandering the school’s hallways and staircases without a staff member accompanying them. Teachers and students will also have to use restrooms one at a time.
Victor Rampen, 16, a sophomore at Beacon, learned on Friday morning about the graffiti, and said he had expected to see a more visible response — like metal detectors. He added that he wished more had been done in the immediate aftermath.
“I think that’s a little bit concerning,” Victor said.
“I don’t think it was ever going to actually happen,” he said of the threats. “But I still think that necessary steps need to be taken.”
Mr. Ventura, the principal, told families that “the larger plan has to be a campaign of sort against hate,” which could include the creation of an anonymous reporting system.
The police said there were no security cameras in the bathroom where the graffiti was found, but that officers were investigating footage from cameras in the hallway. The principal asked that any students with information about what happened come forward.
He also apologized to parents. In his first message on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Ventura mentioned only that graffiti of a swastika had been found in the bathroom. He said that staff had immediately contacted the police, and had worked to quickly remove the markings “as we knew this would be very traumatizing.”
But some families were left confused about the nature of the vandalism as they learned more from their children.
On Sunday, Mr. Ventura acknowledged that the graffiti’s mention of a school shooting — which included a pointed threat toward Black students — had been “regrettably omitted” from his earlier emails.
“We understand the importance of transparency in these matters,” Mr. Ventura wrote.
