In September 2023, anti-Black vandalism was found at Schlegel Hall at the Simon Business School. You probably haven’t heard about it, because no arrests were made, and the University hasn’t put out anything regarding the incident since October 2023. National and international media were dead silent.
Meanwhile, four students currently face expulsion purely because they forced the administration of the University of Rochester to face accountability for their own actions — a grave crime indeed. This was the harshest possible response available after their cynical bid to pull the FBI in on hate crime charges failed. From the fall semester to now, the administration’s actions prove that the University will stop at nothing to ruin these students’ lives.
At the very least, the punishment far exceeds the crime. At most, there is no crime worthy of criminal prosecution. Either way, the administration continues to stamp out student voices pleading with the University to sever its ties with the Israeli apartheid regime.
The discrepancy in official responses to these incidents has nothing to do with hypocrisy in how the University handles discrimination and hateful messaging. They do not care about discrimination or hateful messaging at all; instead, the apparent contradiction only demonstrates the University’s true priority: snuffing out all who challenge them. Anti-Black racism does nothing to bruise the administration’s ego, but the ‘wanted’ posters do. The posters dare them to be better, to uphold the mission they claim to hold so dear.
Antisemitism — a real and serious problem in numerous spaces — holds no significance to this administration beyond its utility in slandering and suppressing student dissent. For yet more evidence of their dedication to suppressing student voices over actually protecting Jews, you need only read the absurd and insulting protest policy implemented at the start of the year.
My admissions essay to the University wasn’t fantastic, much like most of my writing at age 17, but there’s still value to be found in it. In my acceptance letter, the University quoted my writing back to me. It was about the necessity to push the frontiers of social progress. I got into this university on the message that human history is a story of gradual emancipation and constant progress, and the warning that we all suffer if that progress is reversed. Such a message fits well with the professed objectives of MELIORA, which include equity, integrity, openness, respect, and — perhaps most relevant to today — accountability.
Every day of its relentless campaign against pro-Palestinian student voices, the University signals it is far happier to take my tuition than my message, and its own message as well. With the Musk and Trump regime now officially in power, it is ever more necessary that institutions like the University of Rochester stand firm in opposition rather than fall into compliance with their impending crackdowns on the rule of law, Constitutional rights, and this country’s remaining democratic institutions through the use of executive orders. If we do not push this University to be “Ever Better”, they will fall in line, just as they have done so far with regard to pro-Palestinian student activists. The administration hopes to plug its ears until all the noise goes away. Don’t let them.
