The Ithaca College Tri-Council, a body made up of the Executive Committees of Faculty Council, Staff Council, and the Student Governance Council writes to express its outrage and disappointment over the appearance of swastikas on the window of the Baker Walkway and in the Whalen Center. We wholeheartedly condemn these egregious acts. The use of symbols associated with fascism, hate, oppression, and genocide is abhorrent to us as an educational community and as a community that holds as one of its primary values the inclusion of all identities.

We should be long past the time of anti-Semitism, just as we should be long past the time of racism, homophobia, transphobia, agism, ableism, and all ideologies that deny the basic humanity of our fellow community members. Sadly, this is yet another reminder that we are not yet there. A critical aspect of the academic body is the ability to discuss and debate ideas, but language and ideologies that by their very nature are designed to belittle, denigrate, and inflict trauma on individuals or communities are not a legitimate part of this discourse.

We ask that all members of the IC community actively participate in recognizing the many identities that make-up our academic community, and that each one of us take the time to continue learning how antisemitism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, agism, ablism, xenophobia, and all the other ideologies that other and deny humanity manifest in the daily lives of those that they encounter, from small micro-aggressions, to blatant acts of terror, such as the swastikas drawn on our campus.

To our friends and colleagues in the Jewish community, we feel your pain and share your outrage. We are your allies, we stand with you, and we will do the work necessary to educate and create the inclusive community that we believe the majority of our campus community embraces and wants.

Tri-Council hopes all members of the campus community will take part in sessions scheduled throughout the day on Monday, February 28th, an “IC Day of Learning: Grappling with Antisemitism”.

Details can be found here: https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/2022-02-16-ic-day-learning-grappling-antisemitism-3

The campus community is also encouraged to report acts of bias and hate via the bias impact reporting form, found at https://www.ithaca.edu/diversity-and-inclusion/bias-impact-reporting