Harry Reid needed to do something.

A swastika poster appeared at a Bernie Sanders rally in Henderson, Nev. Then there were the swastikas carved in dorm rooms at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Beyond his home state was the march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., and the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

“I’ve been involved in political life in Nevada since 1963,” Harry Reid told an audience gathered for a discussion of anti-Semitism Thursday at UNLV, noting he crisscrossed the country during his time in a variety of offices, including Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. “Never in all my travels did I hear a single slur that was anti-Semitic. I’m not foolish enough to believe it wasn’t out there, but I never saw it. Sadly, it’s here in Nevada.”

Nevada’s former US Senator wants to make something clear.

Unnerved by a rise in anti-Semitic hate speech and bigotry, including in Nevada, former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid organized an educational forum at UNLV on Thursday as part of his call to unite people against it.

Former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid hosts a discussion on anti-Semitism in America with panelists Deborah Lipstadt and Jonathan Weisman at UNLV in Las Vegas Thursday, April 11, 2019.

“It’s raised its ugly head all across America now, and so we’re going to have to do something about it."

After a gunman killed 11 people inside a Pittsburgh synagogue last fall, a swastika appeared in a UNR residence hall. It was carved into a wall with a pencil.

Throughout former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s decades-long political career, blatant signs of anti-Semitism were rare. That has changed nationwide, including in Southern Nevada, Reid says.

Allegations of sexual harassment in the male-dominated tech industry are nothing new. For example, thousands of Google staff around the world staged a series of ‘Walkouts for Real Change’ in November last year because of the issue as well as claims of gender inequality and systemic racism.