Henry Abbott

Dear President Zaki and Mr. Perper,

I am writing this letter as a Bowdoin alumnus, a Jewish alumnus and a former Bowdoin College Hillel board member. I am writing to warn about the implications of complying with Representative Owens and Representative Walberg’s letter to Bowdoin, requesting details about the students involved in the February 2025 encampment, the notes describing the discipline they received and any communication about it. This request is an attack on freedom of speech, an attempt at intimidation and a disgusting attempt to define Jewish identity by people whose motivations stray far from protecting American Jews. The two representatives who sent the letter, Representative Tim Walberg and Representative Burgess Owens, include a footnote in the letter that states:

“The term antisemitic incidents should be understood to include any incidents involving the targeting of Jews, Judaism, Israel, Israelis, Zionism, or Zionists or incidents otherwise identified as antisemitic.”

The footnote clearly states, in an official government document, that there is no daylight between Zionism and Judaism. The letter, written by two non-Jews, defines Jewish identity as Zionism and Zionism as Judaism. What about Christian Zionists? What about American Jews who do not approve of the Zionist project? What about Jews who are Zionist but disavow the nearly two consecutive years of civilian killings in Gaza? Owens and Walberg’s letter, which self-righteously claims to be written in defense of the Jews, is antisemitic. It is antisemitic because it prevents the Jewish people from the right to self-determination. Even if a majority of Jews support Israel, that does not mean that every Jew is a Zionist. This kind of rhetoric endangers all Jews by making them a monolith to be moved around as a chess piece instead of a group of people with myriad beliefs. It fails to capture the range of opinions that Jewish individuals have on the state of Israel.

If you want to support your Jewish students, your Jewish alumni and future Jewish students, you should ignore the demands of Owens and Walberg and continue to navigate the disciplinary process at the campus level. You should focus on setting and enforcing guidelines that prevent hate speech without defining your students’ identities for them. Bowdoin should handle the process of campus discipline without interference from the federal government. If Bowdoin wanted help from the federal government, it would ask for it. If individual students felt threatened by the encampment, then they would have reached out to Bowdoin or to the Department of Education’s civil rights division or both. Certainly, had a civil rights investigation been opened by the appropriate authorities and, under that investigation, questions for Bowdoin had arisen, it would be not only appropriate but necessary for the College to cooperate with that properly conducted investigation. A letter from two Congressional officials providing no basis other than references to this governmental administration’s antisemitic, unconstitutional threats to those protesting policies that they do not agree with is not a legitimate request and should be forcefully challenged. I am sure you already know these things, but I want to ensure there is no doubt about the implications of complying. The letter does not protect Jews. It is not “pro-Jewish.” It is anti-Palestinian and anti-free speech.

If you concede now, this will not be the last of these types of requests; it will be the first of many.

Sincerely,

Ely Miller-Wilson

Ely Miller-Wilson is a member of the Class of 2023.