https://www.nationalreview.com/news/bates-college-silent-as-antisemitism-infects-student-body/
For the crime of volunteering in Israel earlier this year, Bates College student Phoebe Stern has been subjected to vile antisemitic harassment.
Some students have expressed a wish that Stern, the co-president of Bates’s Jewish Student Union, and her classmates would have perished in the Holocaust. One student remarked on social media, “Big nose mafia going to cancel me but you know should’ve finished the job.” Another agreed, “Hitler should’ve finished the job.”
In addition to the hateful words, multiple swastikas have been drawn around campus over the last six months. The Bates administration has not released any findings as to who was responsible for the swastikas or commented on the harassment that Stern and others have endured, though Bates president Gary Jenkins did promise to install more cameras “across campus to identify vandals.”
The Bates administration has found it necessary to issue public statements regarding George Floyd and multiple Supreme Court cases, but has not issued any statement condemning the rape and murder of Israeli citizens in the October 7 attacks or denouncing Bates students’ praising Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.
One donor has spoken out. Alumnus Blair Frank (class of ‘89) outlined his concerns with Bates’s culture of illiberalism and antisemitism during an April meeting with President Jenkins but was “politely dismissed,” Frank told NR. Frank, who has endowed scholarships for international students and helped launch Bates’s Digital and Computational Studies department, pointed out that the very students he and fellow donors have supported are now harassing Jewish students on campus and praising the Holocaust, while also cowing professors and administrators for not embracing their beliefs wholesale.