In an email to the Bryn Mawr College community on Feb. 20, the recently appointed Provost and professor of creative writing, Dee Matthews, addressed the removal of Israeli flags from Erdman Dining Hall. The flags, which were a part of a strand of bunting which included many countries’ flags, were put up earlier this month as a celebration of the Olympics and have now been taken down.
Matthews asked the college community to “[model] what it looks like to remain curious, compassionate, and pluralistic” and not remove the flags. She continued, “we are not making the political statement we might believe when these [flags] are torn down. We are, instead, engaging in erasure. We are telling a member of our own community that their narrative has no place here.”The email was also signed by Tomiko Jenkins, the Interim Dean of the Undergraduate College, and Jill Walsh, the Vice President of Human Resources.
This incident comes after a protest by the Students for Justice in Palestine group during this month’s Board of Trustees meeting advocating for divestment from Israeli companies and a controversial talk given at Haverford by Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur that resulted in a protester and an audience member being removed from the auditorium by Campus Safety.
The past several years have led to the Bryn Mawr and Haverford communities reckoning with their connections to Israel, and policies towards student protests, amidst differing opinions from the Bi-College community. Last year, the Bi-College News reported that the College had hired private investigators to examine students believed to be involved in pro-Palestinian protests.
The email, Matthews clarified, is not a disciplinary action, but “an appeal to our collective character.” Matthews also stressed that the College will “always fiercely support” the College community’s right to protest and dissent. “Nevertheless, true advocacy will never be at odds with someone else’s dignity,” she wrote. She ended the email with a request for the College community to “[honor] the humanity of every person who calls this campus home.”
In a statement to the Bi-College News, Director of Campus Safety Lillian Burroughs said that there were two incidents of removal reported to Campus Safety on February 11 and 19. “Immediately after Campus Safety learned about both missing incidents, we directed our campus investigator to look into the thefts, and that investigation is ongoing,” Burroughs detailed. She stated that anyone with information regarding the removal of the flags should submit it anonymously through the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX reporting form. Bryn Mawr Dining Services declined to comment on the incidents.
3 comments
Considering what is happening in THIS country, I wish I saw more articles about Bryn Mawr students protesting what is happening to our democracy, ICE, trans people than performative useless things like this. Might as well take down the US flag because we’re not much better! I guess it’s a lot easier and safer just to do things like this.
100% agree
Students are protesting and volunteering in support of all of these things every week, in fact, far, far more frequently than anything related to Israel. They are not covered because those things don’t provoke community conflict or statements from the administration (and because they tend to take place off-campus). It is not by any means “safer” to do things like this, given the level of condemnation and institutional repercussions and the surveillance state that Bryn Mawr has become. When you read things like this, I would recommend keeping in mind that they represent the actions of a single student, out of 3,000 in the Bi-Co, that there is much more going on every day with more nuance than you know, and what feels obvious to you is just as obvious to students too.