We protested the “Renewing Democracy” Summit because of the gross hypocrisy and farcical representation of Clinton’s purported legacy, as well as the Center for Citizenship, Leadership, and Democracy named in her honor. Clinton claims to be a champion of women’s rights while perpetrating a genocide fueled by the imperialist, racist and patriarchal US regime. To invite a war criminal to preach democracy is beyond hypocritical; it illuminates the college’s institutional role in the war machine and encourages students to follow Hillary’s genocidal footsteps. 

The Wellesley administration adds a further layer of hypocrisy through the continued repression of student dissent, even as their Summit and Center preach “civil discourse.” In reality, there was already a lack of “civil discourse” involved in the event. Civic Action Fellows invited to a lunch with Hillary Clinton were shut down when they asked questions regarding her politics on Palestine. Wellesley’s administration preemptively issued warnings of Honor Code charges for anyone inside the event attempting to protest, limiting signs to 8 x 11 printer paper. Identifying students’ outside demonstration as appropriate “civil discourse,” because of our adherence to College policy, while condemning the actions of inside disruptors, inherently implies that Wellesley College believes that “civil discourse” only includes speech the College sanctions. 

We reject the establishment of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Center, the very existence of which is materially intertwined with the genocide of Palestinians. It is funded by Sue Wagner — a Wellesley alum and the co-founder of BlackRock, an investment company that profits off war and genocide by funneling billions of dollars into the military-industrial complex. BlackRock invests in Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, among other companies manufacturing weapons for Israel.

As Wellesley students, often associated with Clinton’s image, we condemn her role in imperialist slaughter. We reject her whitewashed legacy that Wellesley College relentlessly promotes.

At Wellesley, when a student applies for financial aid they will complete both the FAFSA and the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile. The FAFSA provides information on the distribution of federal aid and the CSS Profile focuses on the institutional aid awarded to the student (i.e. grant funding that students do not need to pay back). To determine a student’s financial aid eligibility, the CSS Profile also considers, among many other factors, the number of family members in college. In this particular case, although the number of siblings in college will not be assessed via the FAFSA, the Office of Student Financial Services (SFS) will continue to consider this as part of the CSS Profile. 

Wellesley wants students to be informed and reassured that SFS is working hard to prevent any disruption. We recognize the challenges our students and their families have experienced completing the FAFSA this year, and we encourage them to be in touch with questions about their financial aid application or financing their education. Students can stop by Schneider, email sfs@wellesley.edu, or connect with their caseload manager for an appointment. 

Most sincerely,

Peaches Valdes

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid

and

Bonnie Quinn

Director of Student Financial Services

This polarizing and dynamic time has certainly yielded inquiries about free speech and free press. While many Wellesley students are disappointed to see the bias of certain Western mainstream media outlets — such as “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post,” which unfortunately have employed Zionist-leaning rhetoric in their coverage of recent and historical events — we have this student-run newspaper, “The Wellesley News,” that provides localized coverage of news and opinions from across the student body.

Despite the fact that “The Wellesley News” Editorial Board has an established position regarding Palestine-Israel, such leanings have neither biased the news articles nor inhibited editors from publishing opinion articles that contradict their perspective. Such actions are the journalistic duty of a newspaper — to publish all available opinions and allow its readers to settle on a position. This applies to all forms of media coverage, but is especially crucial on a college campus — an environment that breeds critical thinking, discourse, and debate. Journalism and diversity of opinion cannot be sacrificed for fear of your readership’s reaction — or anything else, for that matter. College campuses are grounds for ideological diversity, not an ideological vacuum, and Wellesley is no exception.

Unfortunately, some university and college newspapers across the country have opted to shirk their journalistic duty and cower from publishing certain perspectives. An example of this is Stanford University’s student-run newspaper, “The Stanford Daily,” which claims to “[be] committed to publishing a diversity of op-eds and letters to the editor.” 

Stanford University has been the source of many headlines lately, with pro-Palestinian students conducting a sit-in with tents and posters since Oct. 7. The school also made headlines in November when a Syrian student wearing a shirt that said “Damascus” was hit by a car whilst the driver yelled, “f— you and your people!” In a defamation campaign, the student was then called a “pathological liar” by both Stanford Genetics professor Judith Frydman and reported to be one by “The Stanford Review,” the university’s conservative independent publication.

Regardless of a newspaper’s ideological or political leanings, any publication that propagates information has a responsibility to ethically conduct itself. A newspaper should be a source of knowledge production, not ideological conformity. Yet “The Stanford Daily” has published double the amount of pro-Israel opinion articles than pro-Palestine ones. “The Stanford Review”, meanwhile, grossly compiled a collection of anonymous Fizz posts accusing the hit-and-run victim of dishonesty. Random posts from Fizz that accuse the victim of being a “pathological liar” — substantiated with nothing but anonymous stories and petty insults — are not sound evidence for invalidating a physical assault that left the victim bruised and hospitalized. 

What’s more egregious is that both publications are guilty of intellectual dishonesty by avoiding publishing one Muslim student’s opinion piece. Hamza El Boudali is the former president of Stanford’s MSU (Muslim Student Union) and the former vice president of Stanford’s Arab Student Association. He is a graduate student currently completing his master’s in computer science, and has attended Stanford for six years. He was also listed as the author for Stanford SJP’s (Students For Justice in Palestine) statement shortly after Oct. 7. Aside from his perspective as an Arab Muslim upperclassman who has been active and close to the recent events on campus regarding Palestine-Israel, he is the only Muslim or Arab student who was willing to write anything about this topic, as pro-Palestinian Stanford students fear doxxing and other repercussions from publishing articles, and the Daily has a strict no-anonymity policy. The opinion piece he wrote regarding Palestine-Israel was put-off for weeks by “The Stanford Daily,” who had agreed to publish it. 

El Boudali reports that after weeks of editing, meetings and submitting to concessions on his writing, he was finally told it was ready for publishing, only to be informed at the last minute that the Daily’s editors had decided not to publish the piece. He also notes that they were often unresponsive, and it took the urging of Muslim and Arab students sending them emails to get them to interact with the single op-ed offered by a Muslim student. Finally, on Friday, Dec. 8, the Daily published his piece, yet they added significant edits without his approval or consent (amending “genocide” into “potential genocide,” for example, which was later corrected at his behest). In the two months it took them to publish his piece, they published several pro-Israel articles (written by students) berating pro-Palestinian students and their positions. The Daily was not only more critical of the writing of the pro-Palestine piece, they also tried to sanitize this pro-Palestinian student’s voice, policing his writing. The editors wanted him to upend the entire premise of his piece, thus mitigating its impact, and got caught up in minutiae — such as changing a reference to Malcolm X, who is quoted at the end of the article, as “the legendary Malcom X.” The sentence was altered to “the great Malcolm X.”

Similarly, “The Stanford Review” has exactly zero pro-Palestine pieces in their publication, despite claiming to value free speech. El Boudali reports he submitted his piece to them as well, but that the editor-in-chief and other staff members were unprofessionally unresponsive. This student even wrote another piece catering to the Review, titled “Why Conservatives Should be Pro-Palestine,” but the Review remained staunch in their refusal to publish a pro-Palestinian voice.

Other college newspapers, such as the “Yale Daily News,” have been pressured to issue or retract comments made. For example, the “Yale Daily News” published corrections to an opinion piece titled, “Is Yalies4Palestine a Hate Group?” The corrections were regarding the accuracy of certain claims made in the article. The “Yale Daily News” was pressured to retract the corrections, as they were supposedly inaccurate — even though the point of contention was, in fact, an area of ambiguity. Objective, factual journalism cannot be sacrificed for the sake of appeasing certain readers. 

Times of disagreement are integral in revealing the true journalists from the fake — the government stenographers from the writers dedicated to truth. Newspapers — especially nowadays — will be forever preserved, their publications forever in the historical record. What side of history do student journalists want to be on?

Why does the Muslim and Arab community at Wellesley have to audition for empathy? Why, in a meeting between the administration and Wellesley Al-Muslimat, did Muslim students have to read out the death threats they had received for supporting Palestine to gain President Johnson’s sympathy? Why, after three Palestinian students were shot in Vermont, leaving one student partially paralyzed, do we still have to justify the very real danger of Islamophobia?

Considering that universities have already or are facing pressure to disband their chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), websites like Canary Mission put up the names, faces and employers of anti-Zionist students, and conservative activist groups have sent ‘doxxing trucks’ around Columbia and Harvard University, it’s a little difficult for us to give interviews on major news outlets talking about how Israel’s psychotic bombing of Gaza has made us feel.  

I find it confusing that we have to spell out our pain like we’re speaking to toddlers to gain a morsel of understanding from the administration, professors or fellow classmates. But maybe I should be more understanding. Maybe, after decades of seeing brutalized, brown bodies in the media, it’s easy to forget that we’re humans too.

Do you remember the photo of the drowned Syrian toddler lying face down in the sand? His name was Alan Kurdi and he was two and so small. Maybe you remember the photos of the horrific abuse of prisoners committed by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison. The humiliation of those prisoners is so sick and depraved it would be an insult to their memory for me to describe it here. Maybe you remember the photograph of Samar Hassan, a five-year-old Iraqi girl screaming, covered in her parents’ blood as US soldiers killed them in front of her. Maybe you remember the massive swath of tired, hungry bodies lining up to receive food at Yarmouk refugee camp. Maybe you remember the faces of the nameless women, men and children, searching for loved ones in rubble, cradling the bodies of their dead relatives or sitting shell-shocked on the ground.

Or maybe you don’t remember. Maybe it’s all pixels and soundwaves to you. You’ve seen Muslim and Arab suffering so often that you don’t think of us as people who are capable of experiencing pain. You think this is our way of life. To drown while seeking asylum, to starve in homes without running water, to be shot, beaten, assaulted, left in bloody pieces on the ground.

Why would Muslim and Arab students be upset about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza: the starvation, the lack of drinkable water, the lack of housing, the lack of sanitary care for women? Why would Muslim students be upset about the deaths of Palestinian children? Why would they be upset about the deaths of innocent men and women? Why would they be upset about genocide? This is just what their lives are like. They’re meant to suffer.

And just in case you see our suffering and think it’s inhuman, the media will convince you that we aren’t humans. We’re monsters. Our women are oppressed and our men are rapists. Many of those in the West calling for sympathy for Palestinians limit their focus to the women and children of Gaza. They won’t mention the fact that the men of Gaza, the men pulling children out from the ruins of recently bombed buildings and holding crying orphans in their arms, are heroes.

Sometimes, I call my parents and cry when I talk about how disgusted I feel witnessing Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza. They listen to me in a sad, weathered sort of silence. All they can say is that they’re sorry because they used to be like me, until decades and decades of witnessing the suffering in the Muslim and Arab world, of seeing people with their own names die in horrific ways, has made them numb. Sometimes, though, they see an image so heart-breaking or hear of an atrocity so evil that it crumbles the walls they’ve built up. And then they’re nearly crushed by the weight of all the pain they’ve witnessed, of seeing their homelands torn apart, their religion and their cultures twisted by the Western media into something vile.

I don’t want to live in a world where Muslim and Arab suffering is the norm. I don’t want to see my classmates have to break down into tears to gain sympathy or support from their administration. Muslim and Arab students shouldn’t need to justify our pain. It’s unfortunate, and quite frankly disgusting, that this even has to be said.

Notice something strange there? Who is condemned? Who committed atrocities against whom? Only Hamas. Contrastingly, the invisible boogey-man that commits violence against civilian Palestinians only gets “denounced.” Not condemned. 

But this villain isn’t invisible, nor is it a boogeyman. It is the State of Israel. And pro-Palestinian students on this campus are sick and tired of vague references to Palestinian suffering when they are accompanied by the intentional omission of the perpetrator of said suffering. And make no mistake: Palestinians are suffering significantly more than Israelis. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered as a result of Israeli attacks since Oct. 7, and many consider this an underestimate, with inevitable deaths from starvation and lack of supplies contributing to a greater death toll. 

The writers of this piece also add in this painfully unaware statement: “Many of our campus siblings failed to condemn the violent, inhumane acts committed by Hamas.” Yet, the writers themselves did not condemn Israel’s actions. 

Why is it only pro-Palestinians who have to condemn? Why is it only Muslims who have to condemn? Brown people, who have to condemn? Arabs who have to condemn? Why is it only the indigenous side — the side without white, colonial superpowers behind it — that is consistently put into a submissive position of needing to condemn whenever they enter a discourse about their oppression? The writers of that Letter to the Editor did not condemn Israel. The only reason any Wellesley student is hesitant to condemn Hamas is because 99.99% of the time, they are speaking with somebody who demands condemnation but cannot condemn Israel themselves. Their hypocrisy does not go unnoticed. For an entire paragraph, they detail all of the supposed ways in which Hamas has wronged the Palestinian population, claiming that their taxes “crippled” the Palestinians. These writers had the audacity to condemn Hamas for not building “supportive infrastructure,” like hospitals and mosques, in Gaza. Hey geniuses: Israel would have bombed that infrastructure! That’s precisely what they’re doing now.  

Alongside this hypocrisy is a negligent hastiness in labeling anything that contradicts their position “antisemitic.” They state, “Zionism, an essential tenet of Judaism, is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination and statehood in their ancestral homeland of Israel. Denying Jews this right is antisemitic.” This statement claims that anyone who is pro-Palestine is antisemitic. Following this logic, all 20,000+ slaughtered Palestinians, thousands of whom are children, are bigoted anti-Semites because they denied Israeli Jews the right to take their land and homes and murder them with impunity. But you know what is most ironic? Arabs are semites. The writers are willing to label anything as antisemitic except the murder of over 20,000 Arabs, who are, by definition, semites. 

“We wish more of our siblings would have expressed their support by condemning the terrorism perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians.” You did not condemn Israel. You are not in a position to ask your siblings to condemn anything when you have failed to do so. 

“We hope you will join us in condemning acts of terrorism and hatred in all forms.” You have not condemned acts of terrorism and hatred in all forms. You are attempting to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes and make them think you are just because you claim you are. It is, in fact, YOUR silence that speaks volumes.

On Oct. 7, the attack by Hamas on Israel killed the most Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, an event that remains an open wound and source of trauma in the hearts and minds of Jews. In Israel, our friends and family have been murdered, raped, tortured and taken hostage. We are in pain. We are grieving.

The lack of support for Jewish students here on campus is chilling, disappointing, and yet, unsurprising. Many of our campus siblings failed to condemn the violent, inhumane acts committed by Hamas, a US- and UN-recognized terrorist organization whose original charter explicitly calls for the death of all Jews worldwide.

Hamas has spent millions of dollars, stolen from aid meant for Palestinian civilians, in pursuit of these goals rather than building supportive infrastructure. With the amount of money that was used to build just one tunnel into Israel, Hamas could have constructed “96 homes, seven mosques, six schools or 19 medical clinics.” Many Hamas leaders live in luxury while Palestinians suffer in poverty and are crippled by taxes imposed by Hamas.

Recently, campus flyers declared “glory to the martyrs,” and students chanted “resistance is justified” at a protest on campus. Celebrating terrorists who die with the mission of murdering all Jews is antisemitic. A common phrase used by Palestinian resistance groups, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” calls for total Palestinian control over the entire territory of Israel’s borders, and it is a rallying cry for terrorist groups, like Hamas, to kill all Jews. While Palestinians, like Jews, have ancestral claims to the land and have the right to self-govern and to self-determination, calling for the complete elimination of the Jewish state and praising a known terrorist organization is antisemitic.

On Oct. 19, an email sent by Munger residential staff asserted, “there should be no space … for Zionism within the Wellesley College community.” Zionism, an essential tenet of Judaism, is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination and statehood in their ancestral homeland of Israel. Denying Jews this right is antisemitic, and when you say there is no place for Zionism on campus, you are excluding many of your campus siblings. To be clear, Zionism neither precludes nor excludes support for Palestinian statehood, and Zionism also does not imply support for the current Israeli government or its policies. 

Wellesley students cannot profess themselves to be progressive advocates and then try to justify kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering civilians. We wish more of our siblings would have expressed their support by condemning the terrorism perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians. Either you champion the value of all innocent lives and denounce outright terrorism, or you do not.

We hope you will join us in condemning acts of terrorism and hatred in all forms. Let us stand together to affirm our compassion for all human life. We are in pain. We are grieving. And your silence speaks volumes.

However, this is not how Israel is portrayed in some Western mainstream media outlets. Using sly rhetoric, many publications avoid condemning Israel for its atrocities, instead using Hamas as a scapegoat and strawman against pro-Palestinians and anti-Zionists. Now, this biased and misconstrued representation does not come as a surprise to anybody who has followed the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine over the years, with news outlets often turning a blind eye to the atrocities faced by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank on a daily basis. But what has been shocking to me, as a first-year Arab Muslim student here at Wellesley, is President Paula Johnson’s response to this issue. 

While many folks may avoid speaking about this polarizing conflict (i.e. genocide) entirely, the fact of the matter is that silence can be wrong. Being passive to injustice is nurturing and perpetuating it. But it comes as no surprise that an even greater wrong is explicitly validating and propagating injustice, which is why I say that President Johnson was better off staying silent about Palestine-Israel than sending out the shameful messages she did on Oct. 11 and 20. 

She begins her initial statement on Oct. 11 with, “This weekend Hamas launched deadly terrorist assaults on Israel and its citizens that are appalling in their magnitude and manner, including the brutal execution of innocent families and the taking of approximately 150 hostages. This attack has led Israel to declare war against Hamas. As president and a member of the Wellesley community, I condemn the taking of hostages and the indiscriminate murdering and terrorizing of civilians.”

All I can say is this: where were you, President Johnson, for the past fifty-plus years — six of which you’ve been Wellesley president — while the terrorist state of Israel has been occupying Palestinian land, expelling its people, and bombing and brutalizing the whole region? What are your comments about the fact that 106 years ago, some white European man promised a region in Asia to a group of other Europeans for the taking — with no say from the indigenous people involved? What do you have to say about the fact that right now, Palestinian deaths are vastly exceeding Israeli deaths — and have been by a large margin for the past several decades? What about the fact that Israel is actively committing various war crimes, including bombing hospitals? It’s not Palestine, President Johnson, that has an army and is backed by international superpowers. 

Right now, as I write this article, war crimes are being committed against Palestinians by Israelis — war crimes that the West validates — that you validate — by choosing to provide a one-sided narrative on this subject. No, not just one-sided — a racist narrative. 

I do not use that term lightly. But first, let me clarify one thing: it is certainly worth condemning the murder of innocent people. But Israel has been committing crimes since before Hamas existed. So if you condemn Hamas without first condemning the occupying state that led to its construction — if you use Hamas to say that the Palestinians have no right to fight against their colonizers — if you continue to focus on Hamas and not the state that is committing greater crimes that have the greater injustice of being validated by dozens of other countries, the foremost of which is the United States — if you have the audacity to call Hamas a terrorist group and do not call Israel that — then you are somebody who cannot condemn or criticize any act of colonialism beginning with what European settlers did to the Native Americans centuries ago. Your right to a moral high ground has been revoked. 

So, if you propel the lives of the Israelis over the Palestinians — if you propel the narrative that the white man creates over the one that the brown one lives every single day — that is racist. And Wellesley students should have no qualms about pointing this out.

This, in particular, is what makes President Johnson’s message so shocking: she is the president of Wellesley College — a school that prides itself on prioritizing diversity and inclusion. In my first-year Geosciences class, I was pleasantly surprised to see a Land Acknowledgement written by the Native American and Indigenous Students Association in the syllabus, stating, “In this course, we will often use Massachusetts and North American geology as case studies, and it is important to grapple with the complicity of this field in colonialism, exploitation, and scientific racism.” 

This is the level of social and historical awareness in a Geosciences class — not an English or History class — at Wellesley. This same Wellesley College has a president who just validated colonialism and exploitation. 

Some may argue that she said, “I condemn the taking of hostages and the indiscriminate murdering and terrorizing of civilians,” without specifically saying “Israeli” hostages and civilians. Her previous sentence, however, makes it clear who she’s referring to — and as I said, this is the subtle rhetoric that many are using to demean Palestinian lives while avoiding getting called out for doing so. 

President Johnson’s final paragraph does more of that: “As the situation in the Middle East evolves, I know members of our community will view the events differently … We live and learn together, recognizing our common humanity, in the hopes that we can contribute to the making of a better world.” This is fluff. Again, there is no such thing as “common humanity” when you choose to send out an email to the entire school decrying Hamas’s violence and yet are silent about Israeli violence. You stripped Palestinians of their humanity. 

President Johnson’s disastrous message ended on the worst note possible — with a quote from President Joe Biden. Joe Biden, the man who is an accomplice to Israel’s crimes and publicly supports them wholeheartedly. Why not just quote Alfred Balfour or Benjamin Netanyahu? 

I am embarrassed as a Wellesley student by the fact that the president of my school could send such an inadequate statement. I am embarrassed on behalf of Wellesley College — a school that proclaims to be sensitive to issues of injustice and colonialism, but fails to apply these ideals when faced with a real-world, modern-day example of it. What good are our “decolonial” history and science classes if we can’t do anything when the time comes to stand up? What good is learning about history — especially the history of Africa and the Middle East — if we so willfully and passively let it repeat? 

On Oct. 20, President Johnson sent out a second message, this time regarding the email sent out by the residential life team in Munger Hall that condemned Zionism. Instead of forcing the Munger team to issue an apology, President Johnson should have humbly asked them to teach her how to compose an appropriate, ethical statement condemning injustice. While some Wellesley students, like those in Munger, admirably and bravely stand against injustice and oppression, President Johnson can do nothing better than discipline them and reiterate her “strong [condemnation] of the terrorist attack by Hamas.”

At some point, these acts of blatant racism and bias become an issue of “If you don’t know, you don’t know.” I don’t know if President Johnson is being deceitful or ignorant, but either way, it is shameful. I speak on behalf of every pro-Palestinian student when I say that her messages have been hurtful, to say the least. But we are tenacious and intelligent enough to see through the lies. #FreePalestine. #CondemnIsrael.

Please find below a letter we, alums of Wellesley, have written to President Paula Johnson titled: We Condemn the College’s Silencing & the Resulting Harassment of Students who Speak Out for Palestinian Liberation. 

Wellesley Alums put together this letter in solidarity with your publication. If it serves you and helps your call for liberation, we would love for it to be published as a letter to the editor. However, our primary goal is to support you in the ways that we can: if you think it might cause your org or any other student further vitriol and harm, please prioritize your safety at this moment and we would be okay with it not being published

President Johnson,

Last week we were inspired by the Wellesley News editorial board’s courageous op-ed in support of Palestinian Liberation and justice, a matter of transnational importance. This week, we are writing to you as Wellesley College alums who are indignant at the college’s disgraceful response in retaliation to its students’ courage.

We are deeply concerned for the safety and wellbeing of the students on the Wellesley News Editorial Board as a consequence of your statement. Since your email, misleadingly titled “Condemning Antisemitism”, in which you comment — for the very first time — on a student article and falsely accuse its authors of endorsing anti-Semitism, your students have been facing online doxing and harassment. Their names and photos are being published online, and many international and local news outlets are spreading the same false and unfounded accusations you raised. What will you do to ensure the students are safe from online harassment, doxxing, and slander?

***

The reframing of calls to justice in Palestine as “antisemitism” is a manipulative diversion tactic. It is disappointing, yet not surprising, that your email, President Johnson, had no mention of Palestine or the brutality of the occupation despite the op-ed in question being entirely about Palestine. This deceitful email undermined and bastardized the calls for justice in Palestine by shifting the conversation to shut it down and, worse, made an urgent call for justice seem like an attack on a religion, which it is not. Others have spoken about the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism at great length (e.g. Human Rights Watch & Decolonize Palestine.) What will you do to properly educate yourself on the Palestinian fight for liberation and address the College’s complicity in supporting the brutal military occupation they are subjected to?

***

The Mapping Project’s portrayal of Wellesley College as an anti-Palestinian institution is true. The Project simply makes obvious ties between institutions and the roles they play in the colonization of Palestine, U.S. imperialism, and violent policing, and is correct in including Wellesley. The College administration does indeed create an environment where students who support Palestine, especially those on visas, cannot express their views without consequences. Case in point? The harassment students are facing, facilitated by the College’s President, intending to silence and manipulate their support for Palestinian liberation.

The President’s email falsely claims that the project targets Jewish institutions, which is simply untrue: this false claim will not absolve Wellesley from its ethical obligations and is an affront to legitimate concerns of antisemitism. The mapping project provides a vital service: wouldn’t you like to know if any institution you are in, regardless of its mission, supports racism? genocide? apartheid? What is so controversial about highlighting that, as is the case of Wellesley, a College administration is complicit in harm when it has a history of silencing discussions on Palestine and allowing its students and faculty to be targeted? In your email, you claim to support ”individuals in our community feeling free to peacefully express their views on political issues”. Unless they’re criticizing the college? Or is it Palestine that is the exception?

***

To Wellesley College: what will you do next? This is not the first time Wellesley College has stood on the wrong side of history in matters of justice. You may revisit the archives to learn about the student activism on Wellesley’s campus urging the College to divest from Apartheid South Africa in the late 1980s and early 90s. Then, as now, the College chose to punish its students for making a statement it knows donors and other stakeholders will not be happy about. Then, as now, it has everything to do with the College’s complicity and investment in the oppression of others, and has absolutely nothing to do with what is morally right.

The question remains to you, President Johnson, the College Administration, and the Wellesley community: will you make any effort to question propaganda and false talking points and instead allow for a safe environment for students to speak about Palestine without getting doxed or retaliated against by the College administration or faculty?

A heart-felt thank you to the students of the Wellesley News Editorial Board for having more courage and more clarity than the College’s President and Administration. We hope and pray that the College will do its part in protecting you and your right to express your truth, freely and safely, and hope that it takes our concern, and the concern of other BOW alumni seriously.

We demand better from President Johnson than spreading disinformation and shutting down such a critical conversation, and we strongly urge her to heed the demands made by Wellesley Students for Justice in Palestine (WSJP).

Sincerely, 

Seriously Concerned Alums (choosing to remain anonymous so as to not get retaliated against).

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘22

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘16

Alum, Class of ‘15

Alum, Class of ‘14

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘17

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘17

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alumn, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘21

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘17

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘17

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘17

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘16

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘19

Alum, Class of ‘18

Alum, Class of ‘20

Alum, Class of 22

Alum, Class of ‘22

Alum, Class of ‘15

What if I told you that Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an illegal firearm and then, unprovoked, murdered two Black Lives Matter protestors and injured a third? 

I would be lying. 

On August 25, 2020, he offered low-grade medical help at a Black Lives Matter protest-turned-chaotic demonstration and ended up shooting three men, killing two. This past November, he was acquitted of all charges. 

Following the ruling, an op-ed in The Wellesley News falsely claimed that Rittenhouse “pretended to be a medic” and “was armed with an illegally procured military-style rifle.” The article represents popular misunderstandings that make Rittenhouse out to be a white supremacist getting away with murder. The truth is much more nuanced.

Kyle Rittenhouse was no stranger to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and he didn’t come from out of town to attend the demonstration. He worked in the next town over, and much of his family — including his father and grandmother — lived in Kenosha. He testified that he went to his job on August 24 and spent the night in Kenosha with a friend whose stepdad stored his gun. He owned the weapon legally, and it didn’t cross state lines. 

Rittenhouse was a fire/EMT cadet in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois. On August 25, 2020 he didn’t cross state lines with an AR-15 and the intent to kill. Rather, he went to downtown Kenosha that morning to walk around and clean graffiti off a school. He testified that his first-aid kit, which he brought with him when he worked as a lifeguard, was in the back of his car. When a chemical bomb went off, he said, he helped flush a man’s eyes. He also wrapped a woman’s ankle. 

The first man Rittenhouse shot, Joseph Rosenbaum, threatened to kill him twice. According to Rittenhouse’s testimony, he and Ryan Balch, who he’d met that day, “were asking people if they needed medical help.” Balch saw Rosenbaum trying to start a fire and asked him not to, he said in court. Then, according to Rittenhouse, Rosenbaum “screamed, sorry for my language, he screamed, ‘If I catch any of you fuckers alone, I’m going to fucking kill you.’” 

According to witness testimony, Rosenbaum lunged at Rittenhouse and tried to grab his gun. Rittenhouse shot him. 

The Wellesley News editors asked me to “justify [my] reasoning for using these testimonies as [my] primary source.” They published an op-ed about Rittenhouse with false information, then demanded that I explain why I’m using sworn, uncontested court testimony. 

If the public wants to judge the jury for acquitting Rittenhouse, they ought to understand the evidence that was presented. Much of that was testimony. None of the testimony I cite was disputed in court. 

Major newspapers have cited Rittenhouse’s testimony. The Washington Post corrected an article based on it. Another Post article explained key parts of what Rittenhouse said in court. The New York Times cited testimony in their summary of the case. Why? Because journalists use testimony to tell the full story of a court case. 

Okay, back to the trial: 

Rosenbaum was not a Black Lives Matter protester. He was filmed saying the n-word and seen lighting a dumpster on fire — hardly the racial justice advocate that Rittenhouse’s victims have been made out to be. Rosenbaum had been released from a psychiatric hospital that day and couldn’t pick up his medication because the pharmacy had been boarded up in the chaos.

Soon after, Anthony Huber hit Rittenhouse on the head with a skateboard. Rittenhouse’s defense attorney claimed that Huber then reached for Rittenhouse’s gun. In response, Rittenhouse shot Huber, killing him.

Paramedic Gaige Grosskreutz, who volunteered as a medic and a legal observer, followed the sound of gunshots. He testified that he wanted to stop Rittenhouse from shooting anyone else. To do this, he walked up to Rittenhouse and pointed a gun at him. Rittenhouse shot Grosskreutz in the arm. He survived. At Rittenhouse’s trial, a defense lawyer asked Grosskreutz, “It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him — advanced on him with your gun, now your hands down, pointed at him — that he fired, right?” and Grosskreutz answered, “Correct.” 

Anthony Huber appears to have been a racial justice protestor — he went to Kenosha that night because he knew Jacob Blake, the Black man whose shooting by police earlier that week sparked protests. Grosskreutz was a volunteer medic. Both did what we hope ordinary people will do in violent situations: they stood up to a person they saw as a threat. 

But Rittenhouse fired his first shots because Rosenbaum threatened him and reached for his gun. By attacking Rittenhouse, in Huber’s case, or raising a gun at him, as Grosskreutz did, they put him in further danger, validating his self-defense claim. 

It’s disappointing to see figures I respect get this story so wrong. The day after the shootings, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley tweeted, “A 17 year old white supremacist domestic terrorist drove across state lines, armed with an AR 15. He shot and killed 2 people who had assembled to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of Black lives. Fix your damn headlines.”

Rittenhouse did not cross state lines with an AR-15. He supported Trump, but he had no connection to any white supremacist groups. One of the people he killed had been threatening him and saying the n-word — Rosenbaum was hardly there to “affirm the value, dignity, and worth of Black lives.” 

After Rittenhouse was acquitted this past November, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted, “In this country, you can even kill white people and get away with it if those white people are fighting for Black lives. This is the legacy of 1619.” 

Rittenhouse didn’t shoot people for fighting for Black lives. He shot them because they threatened him, threatened to take his gun — which they could’ve used to kill him — and pointed a gun at him. 

Rittenhouse’s perfectly legal gun is what put him, and others, in danger. Both men he killed threatened him by reaching for it. Ideally, he wouldn’t have brought a firearm to the demonstrations on August 25, 2020. Neither would’ve Grosskreutz. Rosenbaum and Huber would still be alive, and Grosskreutz would’ve been spared the trauma. Nobody should’ve been shot. 

But the popular narrative — that the criminal justice system supported a murderer who went to Kenosha to shoot down racial justice protestors — is just wrong. 

I write to correct misimpressions regarding distinguished journalist, historian, and former Northwestern bioethics professor, Alice Dreger, whom the project invited twice. Dreger first spoke on the politicization of scientific research (an issue that has become even more pressing since), following the publication of her widely acclaimed Galileo’s Middle Finger. Dreger’s views on transgenderism were not the focus. Far from talking down to the students who exercised their own free speech rights in protest, Dreger attempted to speak with the protestors personally — to hear and respond to their concerns. 

Her re-invitation was to discuss an entirely different topic, the purpose of the university, based on an article she’d written for the Chronicle of Higher Education. This time she was not the sole speaker but participated in a lively moderated conversation with law professor and literary scholar Stanley Fish. That event had nothing to do with transgender issues. As a gesture of good will to students who were offended by her work, however, she and I (as then-director) hosted an open meeting before her talk, inviting any students who wished to speak or engage with her personally. All our efforts went to promote, not interfere with respectful dialogue.

But as we bid farewell to the Freedom Project, don’t take my word. Please go to the Freedom Project’s website, where you can find recordings of almost all our events. Look not just at one controversial event but at the range of issues the project explored over its ten years. Listen to the question / answer sessions. Make your own judgments, as Wellesley teaches you to do. 

I hope the Freedom Project’s final year will be a time to explore what we share and to look forward.

Kathryn Lynch

Bates/Hart Professor of English

Freedom Project Director (2018-20)