Who Is Zachary Borenstein? University Of Mississippi Former Student Arrested For Vandalizing Confederate Statue

A former student at the University of Mississippi was arrested Saturday (May 30) in connection with vandalizing a Confederate statue on campus and spray-painting the monument with the words “spiritual genocide” during a rally to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer.

University officials confirmed Zachary Borenstein's arrest in a statement and said he was charged with “injuring, destroying or defacing certain cemetery property, public buildings, schools or churches, or property thereof,” which is a felony.

Borenstein was scheduled for a court hearing Monday (June 1) where a Lafayette County justice judge will set his bond, according to the statement.

People flocked to the campus Saturday to tear into white supremacy and racism in response to the nationwide protests over the death of the unarmed black man. Borenstein allegedly mangled the property in the Lyceum-Circle Historic District in the middle of the protest rally, Clarion-Ledger reported.

Students at the university have long been pressing for the removal of the statue from campus, which stood there for over 100 years. Borenstein, a Jewish person who recently graduated with a master’s degree from the university, has penned several articles condemning the Confederate symbols at the campus.

He also wrote an opinion piece for The Daily Mississippian in February, sharply criticizing the habit of normalizing racist language on the campus.

"I can believe that, for some people, Confederate symbology and language may not be directly connected to the harming of others; regardless, it is not at all acceptable," Borenstein wrote in the article. "The Confederate emblem should be removed from the state flag. The statue in the Circle has got to go. Language matters and certain phrases diminish or denigrate groups of people, and if not addressed, these phrases become so commonplace that those using them do not even consider their origins and effects."

Borenstein was caught in a video likening the Confederacy to Nazi Germany during a confrontation with the university police. “The United States doesn’t need to make monuments to the Confederacy – a monument that makes people feel unsafe and that breeds violence,” he told the cops.

Talks were going on regarding the removal of the statue from the campus but The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, in January, decided to delay voting in favor of the relocation requests. The statue was expected to be relocated from a central spot on the Oxford campus to a Confederate cemetery, which was also on the campus, according to a WLBT-TV report.

Before graduating from the University of Mississippi, Borenstein was a student at George Washington University. He was working as a teacher in the Hollandale School District.