On Thursday morning, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) emailed the student body a statement regarding hate speech on campus, including racist and Islamophobic rhetoric.

“Racist and dehumanizing language is unacceptable and has no place on Bowdoin’s campus. It has real consequences. It is harmful. It creates fear, isolation, and pain, particularly for already marginalized students. And it stands in direct opposition to the values that we uphold as Bowdoin students,” the statement reads.

Arguing that freedom of speech does not permit hate speech, the BSG statement called for changes to the College’s social code to clearly ban hate speech.

“Recent events revealed that our social code has no direct restrictions on hate speech. It is past time that our social code directly condemns hate speech. Fixing this omission demonstrates our resolve as a collective student body in standing up to hate in all its forms. To this end, we are advocating to the Deans for a section of the Bowdoin Code of Conduct that explicitly bans hate speech,” the statement reads.

In an email to the Orient, BSG President Alex Kruse ’26 explained the BSG’s reasoning for releasing Thursday’s statement.

“Members of the BSG executive team met with leaders of affinity groups across campus last week, and from that meeting decided it was necessary to address recent incidents of hate speech on campus. With this statement, we are hoping to make students aware of our ongoing action to change the social code to protect marginalized members of our community,” Kruse wrote.

In a statement posted to Instagram on Thursday evening, Amnesty Bowdoin also condemned hate speech.

“Amnesty Bowdoin unequivocally condemns the Islamophobic and racist rhetoric voiced by a Bowdoin student in recent weeks,” the statement read.

However, the group expressed concern at the BSG’s preferred social code changes.

“In recent years, university policies surrounding hate speech have been disproportionately used to silence and punish students opposing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people,” the statement reads. “Today’s policy proposal from the BSG, while undeniably well-intentioned, merely extends Bowdoin administrators even more power to silence student expression and activism.”

On Wednesday evening, BSG gathered in the Mills Hall Event Space for their weekly meeting to discuss shuttle vans for spring break and several ongoing committee projects.

BSG began the meeting by reflecting on the Thanksgiving break airport shuttle program, which was largely successful but faced some organizational challenges, including finding drivers and meeting student demand.

To mitigate these issues for the upcoming spring break shuttle, BSG discussed a combination of three transportation proposals, including a shuttle service, a 50-person charter bus and a partnership with the Bowdoin Student-Athlete Advisory Committee to recruit students staying on campus over spring break to drive Bowdoin Outing Club vans.

BSG’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee noted the success of the Silent Disco event last Friday in Smith Union, which was planned in collaboration with the Disabled Students Association. The committee expressed hopes to hold the event again in the future. The Academic Affairs Committee also briefly discussed a project to facilitate free books for international students facing employment restrictions.

Campbell Treschuk contributed to this report.