Guest Opinion
If I had predicted the conduct of the student body over the course of the last 48 hours, I would have come to Bryn Mawr perhaps not in a Princess Polly denim dress in celebration of our wonderful theme and the historic Plenary performers—a rather unserious “KATSEYE GAP Commercial” theme—but in a suit and tie. I would have held the microphone away from my mouth and spoken almost in a whisper, neutral and divorced from the most prevalent and unifying threat to our student body’s mental health at the moment, across both Haverford and Bryn Mawr College. I would have ensured that I did not quote a post, verbatim, that was sent to me by a classmate in the morning: a post had been deleted and reposted over five times with the words “the SGA President would not stfu about strike so [expletive] annoying omg.” I would have done it all to honor a respectability body politic that was somehow only applicable to myself and my conduct.
right before Plenary.
It would not become clear to me until the immediate hour after Plenary, as I sat alone in Goodhart Auditorium, that I was wrong. I made the sincere mistake of trusting that the student body would respond well to a moment of vulnerability from myself and those members of the Executive Board in quoting, ad nauseam, things that we had read ourselves. Instead, I heard from students that the importance of sustaining meaningless campus gossip overpowered the consequences of this app that we had seen (lest we forget such recent controversies, such as Lantern Night, an adult watch party, and more which resulted in the targeting of students in name or by position).
We deserve a forum to discuss significant matters about our respective campus climates. At Haverford and Bryn Mawr College, students have the Honor Codes which allow us to feel comfortable raising concerns to each other in such forums as Plenary, and other means of responding to these concerns in ways that are not divorced from ourselves. As adults, we trust ourselves to be respectful to one another and not hinge on ad hominem arguments that ascribe our beliefs to such immutable things as their personal cultural identities. I feel quite objective in my assessment that, in the sea of sincerely respectful and relevant observations about Plenary and suggestions for the improvement of our Self-Governance Association, there was a massive Overton shift even from the days of Instagram confessions posts on this campus—one that suddenly named me and my race in the conversations of my quotation.
I will certainly address that I was extremely passionate about the resolution because of not only my own personal experience, but also that of the students we serve, who have supported the writing of the resolution. In ways, I understand that even in my quotation, I could not have repeated it verbatim.
I also want to note that I am a 21-year-old human being who is capable of emotion, and that emotion was irrelevant to my race, as were previous discussions of me on the platform before November 16, 2025. Feedback about an influx of emails that students received over the previous week of Strike Remembrance is a fair critique, and I am certainly not offended by people sharing this in whatever capacity they choose. IT is when students spend hours of their day reflecting on immutable characteristics of their peers, like their body type, voice, gender, and race, that I draw the line and call into question those “positive things” that the application have contributed to since Bryn Mawr adopted the platform. This rapid attention to Fizz, which allows for Bryn Mawr and Haverford students to post anonymously without much moderation —as observed by inflammatory posts mentioning me by name, position, or even omniscient pronouns such as “she” and “her”—has allowed for even direct misinformation about the intentions of our Self Governance Association. One student even claimed that the BMC Strike 2020 Remembrance Week that I, a Mexican and Indigenous student at the College, had purposefully organized the event, a labor that took me months to see to fruition, to “distract from the targeted harassment and kidnapping by unmarked police of undocu+ students.”
The immediate response to my gall to name outright what is the most grossly unifying aspect at Bryn Mawr College: The unending desire to hear “tea” and gossip about other students that we know, eat next to, and respond to in class without fear of consequence, has been nothing short of demoralizing and, truthfully, extremely clarifying about what is seemingly most important to our community at the student-level. That is the pain that is circulated of a student who becomes the entertainment of students at large.
And that immediate response, as with anything about this world, has an implication on race relations and what it means to be a student of color in a position that requires compassion from the student body and toil for dozens of hours per week without compensation or acknowledgment by the institution.
“I feel nervous to be outspoken, or run for a position [in the Executive or legislative branches of the SGA],” my friends, peers, and classmates of color have consistently reiterated to me across the last few days. An expectation of decorum is expected of women of color at this College who deign not to be overlooked and spoken over. Kathleen Tan ‘27, one of two current Trads Mistexes at the College and target of a severe harassment campaign that prolonged itself for days after Lantern Night, knows this well: “I’ll never be able to fully trust this community again. Anonymous posting empowers people to inflict hurt without consequences and seemingly without end,” she said.
It is not censorship to ask the student body to consider and make their own decision regarding the benefits that this application may pose to our student body. That is the beauty of Self-Governance. The ugliness emerges from an aspect that our Constitution could not have possibly predicted, nor is capable of sustaining. It is becoming immediately clear to me that the issue of race has also contributed to a feeling, a feeling that I have felt echoed from students who have reached out to me and alums of color, that students of color may avoid hyper-visibilized positions on campus in reflection of this moment, for the fear that their vulnerability may be exploited for the gain of an anonymous cesspool.
Despite this, I am resilient and even more confident in the vindication of my belief that this ban is only imperative in the face of the last 48 hours, and not just at Bryn Mawr College, but at Haverford, which has been only a witness to the rapid devolution of the application. I am sure that as a student body that we can design opportunities together for students to engage that remove the ability for students to interact in the spirit of our Honor Code –but it is not possible on this application. Especially after November 16.
I would like to end with a quote from Co-President of the Senior Class, Anadys Rodriguez ‘26.
“Fundamentally, I think many white students at the college cannot cope with being uncomfortable or nervous and will sacrifice their classmates of color to maintain their own comfort. Frankly, I hope so
Anadys Rodriguez ‘26
desperately that racism makes my white classmates uncomfortable; can you imagine what you are putting your classmates of color through? Do you understand how poorly you are treating the women of color that make this campus what it is? Deep down, I do feel that a lot of Bryn Mawr students today would not be nearly as uncomfortable with M. Carey Thomas’ Bryn Mawr as they might want their Instagram stories might attempt to portray.”
1 comment
So sorry you are going through this. There was an app called YikYak when I was at Haverford that was basically like this, and it was an absolute cesspit. These kinds of apps just aren’t compatible with the kind of community Haverford and Bryn Mawr aspire to be. I hope it’s banned from campus somehow. All the best to you.