Two janitors at Columbia University alleged that they were forced to unlawfully clean countless swastikas spray-painted across the Ivy League campus as the school was immersed in anti-Israel protests.
Lester Wilson, who is black, and Mario Torres, who is Latino, said they lost track of how many swastikas they had to clean up, and claimed that they endured injuries during some of the protests, according to a Monday report from the New York Post.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is now probing Columbia over the allegations, the outlet said.
Wilson and Torres submitted their claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, asserting that they endured retaliatory harassment for “reporting antisemitic and racist conduct.”
Former Attorney General Bill Barr, whose firm is representing the two janitors, told the Post his firm welcomes “the EEOC’s decision to open an investigation into Mario’s and Lester’s charges of discrimination.”
Barr, an alumnus of Columbia, said that the school “has a legal and moral obligation to protect the civil rights of its students and employees” and “must be held accountable when it fails to do so.”
The complaints filed by the janitors said they were injured and traumatized after they were trapped inside Hamilton Hall, which at one point was overrun by protesters critical of Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas.
“Columbia had indeed become unsafe for everyone, including the two janitors who were trapped inside Hamilton Hall,” the complaints said.
“And for these two men, Columbia had for months been a hostile environment in violation of Title VII.”
Do these janitors deserve an apology and compensation from Columbia?
Ever since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the complaints said, racist and anti-Semitic graffiti started appearing around campus.
“Mr. Wilson recognized the swastikas as symbols of white supremacy,” his complaint said.
“As an African-American man, he found the images deeply distressing. He reported them to his supervisors, who instructed him to erase the graffiti,” the document added. “No matter how many times Mr. Wilson removed the swastikas, individuals kept replacing them with more.”
Torres said the pair had to clean dozens of swastikas over the past year and a half.
Today’s cover: Columbia janitors claim they were illegally forced to scrub swastikas then were attacked, trapped by anti-Israel mob as civil rights probe launched https://t.co/TF8tZ2gBG0 pic.twitter.com/MOws3wHUek
— New York Post (@nypost) March 18, 2025
“They were so offensive, and Columbia’s inaction was so frustrating, that he eventually began throwing away chalk that had been left in the classrooms so vandals would not have anything to write with,” the complaint from Torres added.
The janitors believe that the university could have more effectively deterred and disciplined the behavior of students.
Columbia has been an epicenter of campus chaos and student unrest over the Israel and Gaza war, and the university has failed to contain the situation.
Now the Trump administration is holding the school accountable on multiple fronts.
Beyond freezing some $400 million in federal grants and contracts, the White House plans to deport Mahmoud Khalif, a graduate of the school who reportedly led the protests and allegedly supports Hamas.
This investigation from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is perhaps the least of Columbia’s worries amid all of the negative attention and the pauses in funding.
But all of this could have been easily avoided.
Columbia could have simply enforced the university’s rules and guaranteed a safe environment where students could learn in peace, rather than facing constant harassment and disruption from other students who merely wanted to agitate.
But Columbia failed to do that, and they are now facing the consequences.
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