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A swastika defaced Associate Professor
Joseph Roisman's door in April, 1994.
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When a long series of anti-Semitic
incidents began occuring at Colby during the spring of 1994, students,
faculty and staff ultimately took action.
While isolated hate crimes are reported at Colby
periodically, a string of three incidents in just a few weeks began to
raise concern in February, 1994. First, a student was harassed because
of his Jewish faith while in Miller Library. Then, a swastika was left
in masking tape on a banner at an off-campus party. Later, the words "Hebes
suck" was found carved into a wooden desk in a classroom in Keyes. These
incidents were believed to be related, and the Campus Community Committee
decided to draft a statement condemning the acts.
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Students gathered in protest of hate crimes.
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In late March and early April, though, several more
swastikas began appearing in the Student Center and in Mudd. While this
prompted more concern, it was a swastika drawn in the center of a Star
of David hanging on the door of Associate Professor of Classics Joseph
Roisman, the first swastika to be directed at a specific person, that resulted
in one student taking significant action.
Jon Medwed '94, with the help of students and faculty,
organized a rally for April 15, 1994, to unite the campus against such
hate crimes. About 800 people attended the rally, which featured both student
and faculty speakers.
The following quotes are from speakers as recorded
in the Colby Echo:
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"This should be a place of education, not degradation. We should not allow
this nightmare to continue. Wake up and realize the equality of all human
beings and the equal responsibility to ease each other's pain." -Mike Miller
'95
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"We are tired of our campus being represented by the swastika. It is an
attack on all humanity." -Jon Medwed '94
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If Hitler had won, he would have killed us too. It is not about issues
of free speech, politics or culture. It is about the destruction of the
soul. We look for ways of putting ourselves up by putting other people
down. We can choose humanity or we can choose brutality." -Professor Cheryl
Townsend Gilkes
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Dave Thibideau '96 addresses the rally.
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Unfortunately, two more swastikas appeard on campus
later in April, raising the total number to thirteen. One was accompanied
by the words "Hitler lives, Jews die" which, being a written death threat,
is a federal offense and resulted in an FBI investigation. Also, an on-campus
call was made to WMHB, Colby's radio station, requesting four anti-Semitic
songs one evening in late April. Though it would be confirmed that the
perpetrator was a student at Colby, who left following shortly thereafter,
the April 15 rally symbolized one of the largest rallies in Colby history,
bringing out unprecedented numbers of students in opposition to hate.
Photos by Cina Wertheim and Lauren C. Vitrano. All photos
from the Colby Echo. The main page photo is Professor Cheryl Townsend Gilkes
addressing the rally. |
