A man was arrested for raising a flag with two swastikas and the Star of David on the Steinhardt building during NYU’s Grad Alley event last month. The suspect — who was a Steinhardt senior at the time — will also face the university’s disciplinary measures for committing the hate crime.

The New York City Police Department charged Alexander Stepnowsky with aggravated harassment, hate crime burglary and criminal trespassing in a hate crime, arresting him Tuesday afternoon on the Lower East Side. After reviewing surveillance footage, police officers verified that Stepnowsky had entered the West Fourth Street building and attached the blue flag, with the letters “NYU,” to a flagpole on the roof. Although he admitted to raising the flag, Stepnowsky pleaded not guilty at his Wednesday court appearance and was released without bail before his next hearing, due in August. 

NYU spokesperson Wiley Norvell told the New York Times that after the annual graduation celebration — which had brought hundreds to West Fourth Street when the flag was raised — administrators investigated the “antisemitic flag” in collaboration with the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force. Norvell did not confirm whether the suspect, who studied music technology, has since graduated from NYU. 

“The university cooperated fully with the NYPD. We are grateful for their exhaustive work and for the efforts of the Manhattan District Attorney in identifying the person responsible for this heinous crime,” Norvell said in a statement to WSN. “In addition to criminal proceedings, we will immediately pursue our disciplinary procedures, which carry the most severe consequences.”

NYU President Linda Mills, Provost Georgina Dopico and campus safety head Fountain Walker said Stepnowsky has been “barred” from campus in a universitywide memo sent Wednesday afternoon. They added that administrators are “working closely” with NYU’s Center for the Study of Antisemitism to develop strategies to prevent antisemitic behavior on campus. 

Stepnowsky reportedly told law enforcement officials that he was frustrated by “NYU’s involvement with Israel’s political issues,” according to CBS News. Davin Rabman, who represents Jewish students as a senator-at-large for the Student Government Assembly, told WSN that he was thankful Stepnowsky was apprehended.

“I don’t think there’s much that needs to be said — they see the flag and they should go, ‘This is disgusting,’” Rabman said. “I’m very happy they got him and I hope he faces the repercussions and sees the consequences that he deserves.”

The university prohibits displays of “derogatory, demeaning or hostile materials” related to protected characteristics, including religion, according to its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policies. Administrators cited this policy last year when they withheld a Gallatin graduate’s diploma after he denounced “the atrocities currently happening in Palestine” in his speech at the school’s ceremony.

Shortly after Mills and Dopico delivered the universitywide memo, Steinhardt dean Jack Knott celebrated that the person who raised the flag on his school’s building would face grave consequences in a Wednesday email to the Steinhardt community. Knott emphasized that the incident was “hateful, harmful and entirely inconsistent with the values of Steinhardt and NYU.” 

“I am deeply saddened and troubled that the person responsible is a member of our own community,” Knott wrote in the email. “It does not reflect who we are as a school or the kind of community we strive to foster.” 

Michael Steinhardt — a hedge fund billionaire and former member of the university’s board of trustees — and his wife, Judy Steinhardt, also praised Stepnowsky’s arrest. Michael Steinhardt, who became the NYU school’s namesake in 2001 after gifting $10 million to the university, also co-founded the nonprofit Birthright Israel and founded the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life. The couple told the New York Post that they want Stepnowsky to be “punished to the full extent of the law” and expelled. 

Last December, the NYPD and Campus Safety investigated graffiti displaying a swastika and profanities directed toward Indian, Black and Jewish students at NYU’s Dibner Library as a hate crime. Campus Safety also investigated a Weinstein Hall door “with antisemitic graffiti” on it in September. A week prior, Campus Safety also looked into an antisemitic incident after a student’s mezuzah was stolen from their Weinstein dorm door.

Stepnowsky’s lawyer did not immediately respond to WSN’s request for comment. 

Contact Natalie Deoragh and Zachary Karp at [email protected].