Over the weekend, College President Sian Leah Beilock announced that a second swastika had been drawn outside the dorm of a Jewish student. Shortly after, The Dartmouth reported that the Hanover Police Department did not believe that it was a swastika, and described it as “positive and non-threatening.” That report was followed by a letter to the editor titled Admin, Do Your Due Diligence, calling out the administration and saying that it “needlessly” put the Jewish community on edge.
In their rush to correct the record, both The Dartmouth and the student who wrote the letter to the editor overlooked the most essential truth: Jewish students were, and still are, afraid. The issue isn’t whether the second swastika was intentionally drawn. It’s that our fear was treated with dismissal rather than concern.
For Jewish students, the larger community’s silence following the first swastika incident was deafening. Last week at Hillel at Dartmouth, we hosted a teach-in on antisemitism featuring Middle Eastern studies professor Jonathan Smolin and Jewish studies professor Susannah Heschel. The event was intended to console community members and was open to the campus. Less than 30 non-Jewish peers attended. At a conversation following the event, several Jewish students expressed anguish over the lack of support from their non-Jewish friends. Beyond Aquinas House, there were no public statements from student organizations. The Dartmouth Jewish community understands that students may be cautious about discussing the tragic war in Gaza, but that is an entirely separate issue from condemning a swastika. Expressing condemnation for an overt symbol of hate shouldn’t be a risk for anyone, and if it is, we have a much deeper problem here at Dartmouth.
After that silence, the reaction to the second incident has only increased student discomfort. The Dartmouth’s “false alarm” narrative was rushed and lacks journalistic integrity. Its “not a swastika” article was written without consulting Jewish students or Jewish campus organizations — i.e., Hillel or the Rohr Chabad Center at Dartmouth. Blanketly accepting the Hanover police’s interpretation of the potential swastika “to be of a positive/non-threatening nature,” without confirming who drew it or what it meant, and without asking any follow-up questions, is dismissive and irresponsible reporting. The article wasn’t an exercise in fact-checking — it was narrative pre-emption and control.
It is no wonder that Jewish students don’t feel comfortable publishing op-eds in The Dartmouth. It’s something I have heard repeatedly from Jewish peers. Even writing this, I feel like I have placed a target on my back. Jewish students rightly have a reason to react strongly, given the rise of antisemitism on and off campus. The fact that the second symbol may have been a false alarm does not diminish the fact that the first one was real and scary. We are not “needlessly” alert.
That context makes the follow-up letter to the editor deeply troubling. The writer uses Jewish fear to attack the administration, including choosing the loaded word “spooking.” He then goes on to set up a tit-for-tat scenario between responses to Jewish hate and Muslim hate, finishing with the claim: “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.” This is a toxic brew. The subtext about the administration being somehow more responsive to Jewish students because it is concerned with its “public image” is hardly the way to bring down the temperature on campus. If the writer had attended the Hillel event last week, they might have gained a broader appreciation for the nuances of Jewish voices and concerns, rather than resorting to broad-brush characterization.
We still don’t know the whole story of what was found outside the Jewish student’s dorm. However, it is possible to want both accuracy and to maintain empathy. Without empathy, we foster a culture of dismissal, polarization and hatred among students. To that end, student journalists must speak with affected communities before publishing. In what other context would any of us be comfortable with the police as the sole word? Administrators should continue to treat reports of all symbols of hate with urgency, and students need to listen to each other before dismissing someone else’s fears.
Our goal as a campus community should be to protect students — not to dismiss them and weaponize symbols for political gain. Comparing forms of hate not only harms Jewish students but also destroys avenues for solidarity and weeding out all forms of hate. After two years of escalating antisemitism across many top university campuses, the Jewish community must feel heard and acknowledged. Rather than jumping to fact-check swastikas, show empathy for the people who find them.
Darci Rochkind is a member of the Class of 2028. Opinion columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
