Williams College Addressing New Bias Incidents
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Saying the college has to “resist hatred in all its forms,” the president of Williams Monday informed the campus community of recent bias incidents at the school.
Maud Mandel sent a college-wide email to provide details on the incidents, talk about how affected students are being supported and point out that the college’s code of conduct will be brought to bear on any members of the student body found to be responsible.
The recent incidents appear to be targeting both Jewish and Black students at the school.
“In one case, a table painted with the U.S. and Israeli flags was placed outside on the Frosh Quad,” Mandel said, referring to an area bounded by two residence halls that abut Park Street . “Over several days the table was repeatedly flipped over and damaged. It was eventually defaced with graffiti that read, ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘I love Hamas,’ ‘F— Zionists,’ ‘Colonizers,’ ‘F— AmeriKKKa’ and ‘Don't claim rednecks.’ “
The Star of David was crossed out on an Israeli flag at the table, and the table itself was repeatedly damaged by vandals, Mandel wrote.
Her email also referenced a series of reports earlier this semester involving the harassment of Black students on Main Street (Route 2), which runs through the middle of campus.
“[On] several occasions this semester, people in cars have yelled the N-word and other racial slurs at Black and other students crossing Route 2,” Mandel wrote. “During one of those incidents a person in the car also threw an empty plastic bottle at the students. Route 2, the main public thoroughfare through campus, has been a site of similar incidents in past years.”
Mandel said that the college’s Campus Safety department, Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Chaplain’s Office and the Dean’s Office have reached out to the students directly impacted by the incidents as well as “students with similar identities.”
She reminded members of the community of the phone number for the Campus Safety office and provided a link to its bias incident reporting form.
“If people from Williams are found to be responsible we will hold them to account through our campus conduct processes,” Mandel wrote. “If they are from outside the college community we will partner with local authorities, who decide whether any offenses can be prosecuted.”
Mandel wrote that in response to student requests, the college’s security personnel are maintaining a presence at campus crosswalks on Main Street during peak travel times and at dusk.
In addition to talking about how the college is addressing the incident, Mandel closed with what she called a “personal message” for the students, faculty and staff.
“As a community we must and will reject any effort to intimidate, harass or threaten people,” she wrote. “While the administration takes steps to address the incidents themselves, we need to help each other, too. Williams at its best can be a deeply attentive, caring community. I invite everyone to pull together now and look out for each other, in all the ways we know how.”
