By The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Proclaiming New York ''a city of tolerance,’' the City Council speaker declared a day against hate to counter a spate of bias crimes, including the discoveries of a swastika and a noose on the doors of two university professors.
''We’re here as religious leaders, as community leaders, as government leaders to send a message: that we will not tolerate hate of any kind in our city,’' the speaker, Christine Quinn, said at a news conference Thursday.
Joined by New York’s borough presidents, City Council members and civic leaders, she announced that Nov. 29 will be the city’s ''Day Out Against Hate.’'
The day is to begin with an interfaith prayer breakfast and feature encounters between Holocaust survivors and teenagers and discussions involving senior citizen centers, schools and youth programs.
Some activities will include the Columbia University campus, where a Jewish professor discovered a swastika painted on her office door on Wednesday. Last month, a black professor at Columbia’s graduate school of education found a noose on her office door.
Several other nooses have recently popped up around the city, racist graffiti has been found in two public high schools, and synagogues and homes have been defaced with swastikas. A black high school principal in Brooklyn received a letter that read, ''White Power Forever,’' and a noose was discovered outside a post office near ground zero.