Hate On The Wall - Welcome Back to Class

    Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a prestigious, private, liberal arts school in Yonkers, NY, about 20 miles from New York City. It was founded as a women's college in 1926 and became coed in 1968. It is proudly liberal/progressive, scores highly in every college ranking, costs a little under $90,000/year (tuition, room and board, etc.), and still adheres to what is called the Dewey method of scholasticism, named after the founder of that school of thought, the American philosopher and educational reformer, John Dewey. Dewey was a humanist and a staunch defender of democracy, whose philosophy aspired to the highest ideals of humanity. He considered education to be one of the, if not THE most important vehicle of achieving those goals. I do not think he would be too happy today.

    I read the other day that while walking back onto the Sarah Lawrence campus after Thanksgiving break, a professor was met with a wall covered in paint that read: “ZIONISM IS RACISM + GENOCIDE,” “FUCK NORMALIZATION,” and at the bottom, in red, “FREE PALESTINE.” Not a poster, not a student-held sign, not the theatrics of a rally. This was a central campus building wall near classrooms and dorms—an unavoidable message every student would have to pass. Unfortunately, this type of “communication” seems to be more and more prevalent at many colleges and universities in America today.

    There are many ways to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are arguments worth hearing, criticisms worth grappling with, histories worth learning. But graffiti like this is not an argument; it is an accusation, an act of erasure, and for Zionist and Jewish students, a declaration that they are unwelcome, immoral, and, in a very real sense, unsafe.

    This is the part of the campus conversation too few administrators name. Zionism is not a fringe ideology but a basic connection to peoplehood and homeland—the belief that Jews, like any other people, have the right to collective self-determination and safety. Even students who criticize Israeli governments or support a two-state solution still identify with the foundational legitimacy of a Jewish home. To declare “ZIONISM IS RACISM + GENOCIDE” is to declare that these students—by virtue of a core part of their identity—are beyond moral consideration.

    And when that message is splashed across a wall at the center of campus life, its effect is not symbolic. Jewish students walk past it on the way to class, into the dining hall, and sit in seminars knowing their peers and professors see the same words and may quietly agree. The campus that promised openness and belonging becomes a place where their convictions are caricatured and condemned.

    At Sarah Lawrence, this does not happen in a vacuum. The college has struggled for years with the issues this moment exposes. It has been written before, by professors at the school, about how the culture of ideological sorting and intimidation makes genuine dialogue difficult. Students routinely report that they self-censor (again, something that is happening more and more across the land, whether those students be Jewish, or even politically conservative), the fact that dissent is quietly punished, and that the loudest voices set the terms of conversation. (I kid you not…I wouldn’t last one semester on most of today’s college campuses.) When a campus, already marked by political homogeneity, encounters a charged conflict, the outcome is predictable: no dialogue, no nuance, but public shaming and reductionism. This graffiti is simply the latest expression of a deeper sickness.

    Students at Sarah Lawrence have told certain professors these things again and again. They feel watched. They feel pressured to hide parts of their identity. They second-guess speaking in class. They worry that peers will label them complicit in so-called atrocities simply for believing that Jews should have a home. When their own university walls echo these accusations, the message is unmistakable: You do not belong. Get out.

    Campus leaders often respond with broad appeals to principle. They emphasize open discussion but rarely acknowledge the climate created when one group’s identity is portrayed as inherently violent or illegitimate...or evil. Universities understand how group-based invective affects other minority communities. They would never allow a wall covered with sweeping condemnations of another group to remain up for days. Yet Jewish concerns are treated as politically inconvenient, or worse, as evidence that Jews are uncomfortable with “critique.”

    The deeper issue is the erosion of the civic norms that make a diverse campus possible. A university is not a street protest. It is an institution charged with cultivating learning and mutual respect among people who differ profoundly. Graffiti that brands a subset of students as supporters of genocide corrodes those norms. It replaces disagreement with denunciation. It casts neighbors as enemies. It turns a campus from a community into a battlefield.

    For Jewish students, the last 16 months have been marked by fear—physical fears after October 7, social fears as antisemitism surged, academic fears as anti-Israel activism grew more aggressive. And may I interrupt myself here to state for the hundredth time...ISRAEL WAS ATTACKED BY HAMAS! Many of these kids feel isolated. Many have watched friendships crumble under the weight of slogans. Returning to Sarah Lawrence and seeing a wall declaring them monstrous confirms their worst suspicion: the people who promise to educate them also tolerate their marginalization.

    Universities cannot control the geopolitics that fuel campus tensions. But they can control how they respond to acts that erode trust and belonging. They can draw a line between debate and dehumanization, insisting on discourse that rises above the slogans of the street. And they can speak honestly about the fact that Jewish students—who make up a small minority on most campuses—deserve the same assurance of safety, dignity, and respect as everyone else. 

    These are not the ideals of John Dewey; the highest hopes for humanity and education, and dare I say...humanism. When a campus wall declares Zionism an ideology of racism and genocide, it is not a contribution to dialogue. It is an attempt to exile a community. At Sarah Lawrence (which has a laundry list of notable alumni in all walks of life from politics to literature), where the ideals of open inquiry and pluralism are already fragile, it is a warning: either the college recommits to true dialogue and mutual respect, or it allows a new orthodoxy—rooted in fear and exclusion—to harden into place. 

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com