Taking a refreshing break from failing the country at large, this week, corporate news outlets are instead misleading the UR community, inflicting real harm on our collective understanding of the truth and on peoples’ sense of safety. The ‘wanted’ posters incident is a textbook example of how institutions — both academic and corporate — warp current events to fit pre-existing narratives.
Shortly after the appearance (and swift removal) of posters alleging connections between certain staff and community members to the Israeli military, illegal settlements, and mistreatment of pro-Palestine students on the River Campus, University President Sarah Mangelsdorf issued a public statement denouncing the posters as antisemitic and declaring that the administration believes “several of those depicted appear to have been targeted because they are members of our Jewish community.” Moving forward, this became the overwhelming national narrative. CNN reported the story as “Hundreds of ‘wanted’ posters were plastered across the University of Rochester campus. Jewish faculty members were targeted.” Fox News stated, “University of Rochester addresses hundreds of ‘wanted’ posters for Jewish faculty members posted around campus.” The Hill published, “University of Rochester plastered with ‘wanted’ posters of Jewish faculty, staff.”
All of these articles ignore the fact that not everyone mentioned is Jewish, and that the grievances were specific and political in nature. The University has a clear interest in tamping down protests related to its academic involvement with Israel, appeasing pro-Israel donors and administrators. There have been numerous other protests on campus related to this conflict (most of which have been publicly opposed by the University) and nearly all have been centered on policy disagreements with administration and the Board of Trustees. The people targeted by the posters are accessible members of the community, and many directly shape school policy. Obscuring the source of the animus behind these posters is journalistic malpractice. It is a symptom of the press-by-press-release style of reporting that national organizations with no connections to the community use to get clicks. Regardless of what one thinks about the posters, they cannot be fully understood outside of the context of ongoing campus protests.
This misinformation has created a real negative atmosphere in the community. As the story was picked up and widely disseminated in this school-approved form, many parents have begun voicing their fear for their children’s safety on campus. Regardless of the content of the protests occuring on the River Campus in the past year, most can agree they have largely been peaceful, and the community has had little reason to fear. The only instance of a Jewish individual injured over the course of those protests was last spring, when a Jewish professor was knocked to the ground by Public Safety while trying to protect the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Parents should not be made to panic over political speech that the school disagrees with if there is no danger at play.
The national narrative of this story will likely not be rectified. The headlines have already been read, the heroes and villains have been decided, and the more researched stories written by people in the community — like those of the Campus Times or the Rochester Beacon — necessarily come later than high profile organizations, who, despite having more resources, only report uncritically on published emails. The outcome? Well, now that a judgment can be made, truth is of lesser importance.
