Henry Abbott

You might not know about Bowdoin’s quick and unjust response to students’ encampment in Smith Union in February. Students exercised their right to protest safely, peacefully and reasonably—aligned with the traditional civil rights practices of a non-violent “sit-in.” Critically, these students are a minority demographic at Bowdoin and are people who belong to groups being targeted by the Trump Administration: Black, brown, Indigenous and trans students.

Now, Republican Rep. Tim Walberg, as chair of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, says that Bowdoin College leaders have failed to adequately respond to campus antisemitism. This aligns with clear efforts by the MAGA faction of our federal government to discriminate against the legal rights of specific groups for dissent against U.S. involvement in the genocide in Gaza. The Trump Administration has indicated it hopes to own and level Palestine, develop it and use it for the United States’ interest. At the same time the federal government is coming down hard on Bowdoin, it is important to be clear. Bowdoin leadership came down too hard on students and is wrongly equating a politicized issue with a political one: Students against genocide ought not be controversial. The administration is capitulating to an authoritarian, corrupt federal government being hijacked by a faction of grifters.

Though Bowdoin is not a public school, I am sure many of our programs rely on federal funding, such as grants for professors. However, the $2.6 billion endowment makes Bowdoin the exact type of institution that is well-positioned to stand with democracy and its own purported values. If a multi-billion-dollar institution still feels the need to cower, what hope is there for the rest of us?

On the road to the death of democracy, we know that law firms and academic institutions—the bodies foundational to the rule of law—are the first to go. During my time at Bowdoin, I was lucky enough to take a course on Eastern and Central Europe with Professor Laura Henry. We learned the signs of a democracy moving toward authoritarianism, and, today, our federal government’s trajectory is aligned with that of Hungary and Turkey. The Republican and Democratic parties are not acting appropriately, as per Sen. Chris Murphy’s concerns in The New Yorker this week. If history has taught us anything, it’s that silence is complicity and complicity is a death sentence.

The TL;DR of it is that Bowdoin has covered its ass and is in line to continue to capitulate. The leadership of the College is showing its cowardice. “We have months, not a year, before our democracy is rendered so damaged such that it cannot be repaired,” Murphy told The New Yorker. We are seeing a plan that attacks our ability to see free and fair elections in four years. We are seeing the end of legal protests because of fear. Bowdoin is scared. But fear is no excuse for failing to do what’s right—history won’t remember those who were nervous, only those who stood firm or folded.

The message Bowdoin sends is one of cowardice. I encourage students, alumni, faculty and staff to consider ringing the alarm bell. This is an emergency. We need to treat it like one.

Dania Bowie is a member of the Class of 2018.