WASHINGTON, D.C. – George Washington University is under criticism for its allegedly slow response to address three swastikas that were scrawled in the lobby of a dorm building that hosts numerous Greek organizations.

Students reported to campus police Saturday that they found three swastikas – 1 to 2 ½ feet tall – written in what appeared to be pen in the lobby of the university’s International House. The building is home to a total of nine Greek sororities and fraternities, including three historically Jewish groups, The George Washington Hatchet reports.

The Hatchet as well as The Washington Post report a school security officer investigating the incident didn’t realize the swastikas were an anti-Semitic symbol, and students have also criticized the school’s reluctance to consider the offence a hate crime.

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“It’s a classic GW effort in trying to maintain a good reputation for incoming students rather than caring about their students that are currently here,” Rachel Schwartzman, an International House resident, told the Hatchet.

“Schwartzman said a University security official did not know that swastikas have an anti-Semitic connotation when speaking to parents — a report echoed in the Washington Post,” according to the news site.

School officials have since painted over the swastikas and met with International House students Wednesday to discuss the incident. They’ve also stepped up security with full-time monitoring, George Washington officials told the media.

“This abhorrent behavior is inexcusable and will not be tolerated in our community,” Darnell Darnell, senior associate vice president for safety and security, wrote in an email to International House residents Friday, according to the Hatchet.

“Such acts do not represent the sentiments of GW’s student body.”

Regardless, the school won’t be investigating the incident as a hate crime, officials said.

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“University spokeswoman Maralee Csellar said the University is investigating the incident as a vandalism case rather than a person-on-group hate crime because officials do not suspect that the act targeted an individual,” the Hatchet reports.

“GW defines a hate crime as any criminal offense, including ‘intimidation, vandalism, larceny, simple assault or other bodily injury,’ that was ‘motivated by the offender’s bias.’”

Rabbi Yoni Kaiser-Blueth of GW Hillel, a foundation for Jewish campus life, told the Washington Post that there had previously been reports of pranks at the Sigma Delta Tau sorority in the building, like fire alarms going off and emptied fire extinguishers, but didn’t speculate on whether it was connected with the recent vandalism.

“We’re concerned, we’re on top of it, but hesitant to – I don’t want to say blow it out of proportion,” the rabbi said. “We take all of these things seriously but trying also to take in broader context.”

The incident wasn’t the first anti-Semitic stunt in recent years.

According to the Hatchet, “Ten hate crimes have been reported to GW since 2010 … The most recent religion-based hate crimes were reported in 2012: one instance of vandalism and one simple assault. …

“When officials investigated a report that swastikas had been drawn on a Thurston Hall room door in 2007, they eventually found out that the student who lived there had actually drawn them herself.”