Controversial Response To Israel-Hamas by Admin
St Lawrence University’s administrative responses to recent developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict have left some SLU community members unsatisfied. Students from different groups are upset about the content of a campus-wide email sent by Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Kimberly Flint-Hamilton on Oct. 9.
The email acknowledged the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the Islamist militant group that rules over the Gaza Strip, on Israel. The email also mentioned Israel’s declaration of war on Hamas and invited community members to join in a candlelight service in Gunnison Memorial Chapel on Oct. 10 to grieve the lives lost in the attack.
Some students, such as Mahmoud Ali ’26, believe that a portion of the email was misleading. “Israel did declare war on Hamas, is a misleading piece of information here. Israel declared war on Palestine and attacked all of Palestine and not just Hamas,” he said. After a student-organized attempt during the Oct. 10 candlelight service to confront Flint Hamilton about the email, Ali said that administrators had made no definitive response to their requests to revise or update it. “So far, the school has no response, although it has been like a week, or more than a week, by now,” said Ali. “And to be honest, we’re not sure if we want to hear the school’s response because we know what side they’re going to take, and it’s going to be worse than before.”
According to a Palestinian student who chose to stay anonymous, the decontextualized wording of the email is potentially dangerous because it accessed students and community members who had no prior knowledge about the ongoing crisis in Palestine. “I think maybe by the time they sent the email, I’d say maybe 20 percent or 30 percent of the campus had never heard anything about the situation,” said the student. “And once you go out and the first piece of information you get is after Hamas’s attack on Israel, what’s the idea you’re going to form in your head at first glance?” The student believes that even while he is grieving, it is his responsibility to contextualize the violence to his peers.
“I just look at the news. I try as much as I can to spread awareness, to tell people. I mean, it’s tough. When you see the children, when you see the moms, it’s not easy.”
President of the SLU Jewish Student Union Lucas Podvey ’25, had different concerns about the content of the email. He is frustrated that it took administrators almost three days after Hamas’s attack to make a very brief statement, and he thinks the language of the email came off as apathetic. “A general theme where I think the administration’s response was inept, from my perspective, was it took out the human connection part to it,” he said. Additionally, he thinks the email missed an opportunity to condemn antisemitism, which he views as a motive and consequence of Hamas’s attack. “I understand and acknowledge the disappointment from a Palestinian perspective on this email, but I know the university will have an opportunity to communicate their sentiments if they choose to do so. I know another opportunity to stand up to antisemitism will not happen again,” he said.
The students who protested the email at the candlelight service are scheduled to have a meeting with President Kate Morris or the Interim Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students, Gail DiSabatino, to discuss their concerns and present ideas for the future. Some students, like Thelmo Systemic Bias Chair Inci Ilkay Uçar ’26, are hoping administrators will help facilitate spaces for educational, inter-group dialogue. “Even though administration might not be able to take a stand, like, the school itself might not be able to take a stand on one side, I think they should allow places for people to have open conversations about this and get educated by peers.”
Uçar made a brief statement at the Thelmo meeting last Wednesday, Oct. 18, expressing her desire to create space for a larger conversation. “I just wanted to talk about it because I feel like nobody ever talks,” she said. Another student who attended the meeting, Muhammed Faisal ’26, noticed that many people in the audience were silently reacting to her statement. “It was clear when Inci was making the statement that there were a lot of opinions in the room because some people were shaking their heads, and some people were nodding their heads, and there were people who I’ve never seen talk about the issue.” He saw this as evidence that creating safe spaces on campus for people to discuss their opinions without fear of hatred or judgment is crucial.
Moments of global unrest like these often raise questions about what role universities play in supporting their student bodies and cultivating learning. Chair of the Government Department and Israeli citizen Ronnie Olesker is sympathetic to administrative decisions to remain politically neutral. She does, however, believe it is the primary responsibility of universities to educate students and community members about current events, including the Israel-Palestine conflict. “Our role is to bring speakers to organize workshops to expose you to the variety of perspectives in the conflict and ultimately to let each student make their own decision. But a knowledge-based decision.”
However, Olesker warns against putting the labor of education directly on people affected by the conflict. She is also wary of having big-picture discussions in moments of misinformation and misrepresentation. “There’s a lot of nonsense on social media, and you can kind of get sucked into that vacuum when the emotions and the reality is flared up,” she said. While she recognizes we should be doing something soon, she believes that now is a time for intra-group conversation and support. “What could be really beneficial now, rather than sort of an academic talk, is maybe a space where students who share identity and share similar pain can come together to express that.”
Chair of the Global Studies Department and founder of Weave New John Collins believes that in addition to affinity group dialogue and opt-in educational opportunities, faculty at liberal arts universities like SLU should be developing required global education curriculums. “Given the depth of U.S. involvement in the issue and the global implications of the violence that’s happening on the ground, universities would do well to build curricula that help all students become educated about these kinds of global structures and power relations and movements for justice.”
To Collins, a broad education, regardless of your major, is a core part of being a liberally educated person. He also thinks universities should act as hubs of critical thinking, especially in moments like this. “There should be space for discussion and perspectives that are critical of dominant narratives. If you can’t ask those kinds of questions and have those discussions and expose people to those perspectives at a university, where can you do it?”