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US university protests against the war in Gaza, against antisemitism and against whatever is popular this week are beginning to wind down as authorities finally regain control. Nowhere was this more apparent than at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio where repeated defacement of the ‘Spirit Wall’ led to a literal whitewashing of the entire affair. For those 8.1 billion of you out there who don’t know what a ‘spirit wall’ is, it’s a place for students to freely advertise events, make a statement or just express their creativity. Or, recently, to post ‘threatening, intimidating and antisemitic,’ messages according to university president Eric Kaler. He released a statement condemning the antisemitic graffiti on the wall, and ordered it to be painted white (which someone probably thought was racist). Some students disagreed, calling it ‘beautiful Pro-Palestinian art,’ and vowed to stop the painting. As the students tried to block their great work from being painted over, the university contractor pulled the ultimate ‘not my job’ and just painted over everything, students included. Kaler condemned the actions of his own contractor, but many people online found the whole thing rather amusing, especially because normally you see the protestors throwing paint on things, not the other way around.
