A University of Virginia student waited inside his Jewish housemate’s room with a firearm on Oct. 30. Robert Cabell Romer then threatened his housemate with the weapon when he returned to their off-campus home. As the Daily Progress reported, this was the culmination of multiple incidents of antisemitic hate the 20-year-old leveled against his target.
Weeks earlier, the targeted housemate planned a party that Romer and other housemates opposed. Romer began sharing antisemitic memes in a group chat involving the target, who “requested that [Romer] stop,” according to the criminal complaint he filed on Oct. 30. The target also alleged in his complaint that “multiple times,” Romer “attempted to fight [him].”
Late in the evening on Oct. 23, Romer texted the group chat that “at approximately 12:30, I am going to free Palestine. Anyone is welcome to join in the beating.” Romer then began to ask about his Jewish housemate’s location. In one text to his Jewish housemate, Romer surrounded his name with Stars of David.
On Nov. 1, the Charlottesville Police Department announced charges against Romer for assault and battery, entering into a property to cause damage, making “a threat to kill or do bodily injury,” and brandishing a firearm. Its alert did not explicitly mention the victim’s Jewish background.
The Charlottesville Police Department did not answer the Washington Examiner’s questions about the number of anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded in the city since Oct. 7, 2023. A spokesperson did state the investigation had turned up no additional information.
The Washington Examiner asked the University of Virginia about the alleged crime and whether it could be linked to a documented atmosphere of antisemitism on the university’s campus. UVA spokesman Brian Coy said he “can confirm that the identified individual [Romer] is not presently enrolled at the University. The University opposes antisemitism and all forms of bigotry, and we take swift action to support students who experience threats or harassment and to hold offenders accountable.”
Coy noted that the university responded to the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, by “redoubl[ing] our commitment to supporting Jewish students,” with “much of that work … led by the UVA Task Force on Religious Diversity and Belonging.” He also shared a letter written by Jewish students of the university who feel their experience on campus has been politicized.
Other Jewish students on campus have spoken out about hate, however. Between the beginning of the fall 2023 semester and January 2024, the university received 19 reports of “potential antisemitism” from students and faculty, according to the Daily Progress. Parents said the responses students received “were generic boilerplate language providing little recourse.”
In December 2023, an anonymous Jewish student cited feelings of fear, discrimination, and being “unwelcome” on campus in a request that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights investigate the university. Among the student’s concerns was the UVA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine’s statement supporting the “right of colonized people everywhere to resist the occupation of their land by whatever means they deem necessary” on Oct. 8, 2023.
The OCR took up the case, which an Education Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner “is still under investigation.”
Also during the prior academic year, an Israeli student “notified UVA on numerous occasions about the hostility he has endured” on campus, according to a request to the OCR from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. The student was called “a bloodthirsty human being” and a “filthy Jew,” “shoved, pushed, and slapped” while wearing a yarmulke and Israeli flag at an October 2023 protest, and told by a professor that he should “be ashamed of himself” for walking around campus in a yarmulke. The student had moved to an undisclosed location “out of fear for his own safety” and was “afraid to wear his yarmulke, Jewish star necklace, or any symbol of his Jewish religion and Israeli heritage” as of April 2024.
The Anti-Defamation League has given the university a “D” rating for its response to anti-Jewish hate. As rationales for the rating, the ADL cited the school’s referendum “calling for divestment from companies that do business with Israel,” multiple reports of antisemitic incidents including death threats and physical assault, and an April 2024 pro-Palestinian campus protest that was “disbanded by state police” and that UVA’s president called “upsetting, frightening, and sad.”
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ADL Vice President of Advocacy Shira Goodman told the Washington Examiner that while she could not comment on Romer’s case, the ADL’s Campus Climate Survey from the fall of 2023 “found that a plurality of college students did not feel physically safe, and even fewer felt emotionally safe.” She said that the ADL is “urging college administrators to swiftly and strongly react to violations of rules and codes of conduct on their campuses.”
“Over the last year,” Goodman said, “we have seen a shocking increase in antisemitic incidents across campuses throughout the country — including incidents of vandalism, harassment, and even assaults. As antisemitic language and rhetoric intensifies and goes unchecked, it is not surprising that it can escalate into acts of violence.”
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into nearly two decades of war and the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.