Students reported to Campus Safety Services (CSS) on Sunday that a table in Frosh Quad painted with American and Israeli flags was damaged and vandalized with graffiti that included antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments.
Director of CSS Jeff Palmer alerted members of the campus community that a bias incident in which “multiple incidents of damage to a table representing Judaism and Israel heritage had occurred” in an email on Sunday at 10:20 p.m. Palmer wrote that the vandalism included “multiple phrases and symbols, some of which were of an antisemitic nature.”
In an all-campus email on Monday, President Maud S. Mandel stated that the vandalism included the following messages: “Free Palestine,” “I love Hamas,” “Fuck Zionists,” “Fuck AmeriKKKa,” “Don’t claim rednecks,” and “Colonizers.” She added that the Star of David on the Israeli flag was crossed out and that the table was flipped over and damaged over the course of several days.
Students reported the vandalism to CSS at around 8 p.m. on Sunday, Palmer told the Record. In their report, the students provided pictures of the table taken earlier in the day. After speaking with Deputy Director for Operations Alison Warner and Associate Director of Clery Compliance Theresa Ryan, Palmer made the decision to notify the campus community that a bias incident had occurred.
At around 8:45 p.m., the Williamstown Police Department (WPD) received a call for service from CSS, WPD Sergeant Anthony Duprat told the Record. Responding officers then went to campus and spoke to two of the students who initially reported the incident to CSS. The students who filed the report to CSS declined to comment.
The WPD has not yet identified any suspects. “Unfortunately, there are no cameras in the area, and there are no witnesses, so we’re kind of at a standstill,” Duprat said. “We’re hoping that someone will come forward — maybe someone who witnessed it or someone who’s heard something.”
In her all-campus email, Mandel added that if members of the College community are found responsible, they will be held accountable through the College’s disciplinary process. If those responsible are not associated with the College, WPD will decide whether any offenses should be prosecuted.
Mandel’s email also informed the student body about other incidents of “identity-based hatred” that have occurred this semester. On multiple occasions, Mandel wrote, individuals driving on Route 2 have yelled the N-word and other slurs — and once threw an empty plastic bottle — at Black students and other students as they crossed the street. “We have to resist hatred in all its forms, and these latest incidents are evidence of why our work must continue,” she wrote.
In his alert email, Palmer identified the vandalism incident as a Clery Act crime. The Clery Act is a federal law that mandates transparency from colleges and universities about certain crimes committed on campus. Alerts from CSS notify the College community about Clery crimes “that have been reported to [CSS] and that have occurred on campus or on non-campus property or public property, where it is determined that the incident may pose a serious or continuing threat to members of the College community,” per the CSS website.
Clery standards require the issuance of a “timely warning” to community members, Palmer told the Record. “I made the decision to deem it what it was and put the information out, as was Clery standard,” Palmer said.
Mandel declined to comment on whether any of the incidents other than the vandalism were Clery Act crimes and why the College had not alerted the campus community about earlier incidents when they initially occurred.
Both Palmer and Mandel said they hope to clarify the College’s processes for notifying the campus community about bias incidents moving forward.
“The recent bias incidents have shown that we need to prioritize attention to our notification practices, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Palmer wrote in an email to the Record.
“I am also concerned that we need to follow our policies consistently, including in regards to timely warnings,” Mandel wrote in her all-campus email. “So while we respond immediately via the above actions I am meanwhile going to work with Senior Staff and others to make sure we are consistent in our policies and practices in regards to Clery messages.”
“The administration has struggled for years with the challenge of how to report various acts of racism in ways that feel equal, consistent and transparent to the community,” Mandel wrote in an additional statement to the Record. “But obviously we’re not there yet, and I’m sorry about the impact on our community members. This is why I said in my campus message that I’m going to work with Senior Staff and others to ensure that we’re consistent in our future reporting policies and practices.”
The presidents of the Black Student Union said that Mandel reached out to them to schedule a meeting after her email. They declined to comment to the Record before the meeting.
Rabbi Seth Wax told the Record that a student informed him of the incident on Saturday night. Wax then spoke with the students who made the table on Sunday, encouraging them to file a bias incident report to the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (OIDEI) and report the incident to CSS. Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leticia S.E. Haynes ’99 told the Record that a report was filed with OIDEI, though not by the students who reported the bias incident to CSS.
“In terms of engaging in more thoughtful discourse, I think first and foremost we need to refrain from making or posting comments that insult, disregard, or attempt to intimidate others,” Wax wrote to the Record. “I encourage all of us (and I include myself in this) to lean into learning from others, especially those with whom we disagree.”
“I believe that we can have thoughtful conversations and even disagreements about whether a given statement that appears is anti-Israel or antisemitic,” Wax added. “But when vandalism degrades the Star of David, which is identified with Jews and Judaism, includes the kind of hateful language that appeared, and which purports to love Hamas, an antisemitic terror group, I think it clearly becomes antisemitic.”
“We are disturbed that members of the Williams community hold hateful and antisemitic beliefs and would choose to express them in this way,” the presidents of the Williams College Jewish Association — Emily Axelrod ’25, Noah Cape ’25, Emma Nathanson ’25, and Rachel Schmidt ’25 — wrote in a joint statement to the Record. “We are grateful to be part of a strong, pluralistic Jewish community and are, as always, committed to making WCJA a space that supports Jewish students of all identities.”
Palmer mentioned that CSS and WPD will work with OIDEI, the dean’s office, and the chaplains’ office to support students.
In her email, Mandel also wrote that, in response to requests from students, CSS will be present at the main campus crosswalks this week “during peak traffic times and at dusk.” “That presence will go ahead as planned,” she wrote.
In an email to the Record, however, Palmer wrote that CSS was not specifically requested at crosswalks by students. “We began planning for this a few weeks ago for a couple reasons, daylight savings being Sunday and with it getting darker earlier — it adds increased risk,” he wrote. “Additionally, with the election and Homecoming occurring this week, we wanted to have some additional safety planning efforts in place.”
Several incidents of vandalism have occurred at the College in recent years. In May 2023, the Haystack Monument was defaced twice with various obscenities. In fall 2022, three bias incidents occurred on campus: The Soldiers Monument in front of Griffin Hall was defaced with graffiti of a Confederate flag and the word “Rebel” on Oct. 9, 2022; the N-word was found written in black marker on a chalkboard in Sawyer Library on Oct. 24, 2022; and racial slurs were found written into the dust on several cars in the parking garage on Nov. 9, 2022.
“As a community we must and will reject any effort to intimidate, harass or threaten people,” Mandel wrote in her all-campus email on Monday. “While the administration takes steps to address the incidents themselves, we need to help each other, too. Williams at its best can be a deeply attentive, caring community. I invite everyone to pull together now and look out for each other, in all the ways we know how.”
