Letter to the Editor: Admin, Do Your Due Diligence

Re: After investigation, Hanover police contest Beilock’s report of swastika

The administration has seemingly falsely announced to campus that a swastika was found outside a Jewish student’s dorm, raising several questions. Was a basic fact-check not performed before sending out such an alarming email? Did the administration know it was a false alarm before a student reporter got an update from the Hanover Police Department — and if so, why wasn’t this communicated to campus by the administration? 

Regardless of the full picture, it would seem that the College administration has at the least committed a gross act of negligence. It was only a few days ago that an actual swastika was found carved in carpet outside a student’s dorm; hastily spooking campus into thinking that another targeted act of hate had taken place without first confirming the facts is egregiously irresponsible at best, and actively harmful at worst. Campus — especially our Jewish community — has now been needlessly put on edge in a moment where it was already tense. 

In a climate where the number of hate crimes and acts of violence on college campuses are growing, this sort of recklessness from senior administration is unacceptable. 

College President Sian Leah Beilock’s knee-jerk reaction in this instance stands in stark contrast to how she has handled incidents of hate directed against other campus communities, particularly Muslim students — the vandalization of Al-Nur’s ice sculpture in the winter of 2024 certainly didn’t warrant a campus-wide email from Beilock, even after Al-Nur came out calling the incident a hate crime. Such a disparate pattern of behavior in dealing with hate directed at minority student communities indicates the administration might be more interested in its own public image than actually protecting students. 

Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.

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