Pro-Palestinian protesters at UW called for UW President Ana Mari Cauce to retract her May 15 statement that called the Quad encampment “vile and antisemitic” this morning after photos of antisemitic graffiti were identified as being unrelated to UW.
The statement, released just after 9 a.m., stated that “UW and the President are acting either with malicious intent or are fully incompetent.” It further alleged that the misattributed images were intentionally used to portray the encampment as antisemitic.
In a May 23 meeting, Juliette Majid, a graduate student at UW and pro-Palestinian community member, requested that Cauce provide specific examples of the antisemitic graffiti referenced in her May 15 statement.
Five photos were included in Cauce’s initial response May 29. The Daily was able to independently verify that two of the photos included were not taken on campus, and were from unrelated out-of-state incidents in 2019 and 2021, respectively. The fifth photo was unidentifiable.
A photo of graffiti reading “Kill Jews” on a sidewalk was from Mid-Wilshire, California, in 2019. The photo was attached to a now-deleted tweet made by a Los Angeles chapter of the Anti-Defamation League.
Another photograph of black spray paint on a wall with a swastika reading “The Jews” was from an 2021 incident in St. Petersburg, Florida, during which the Florida Holocaust Museum was vandalized with antisemitic language.
Majid responded in a follow-up email May 30, reporting the misattributed photos to the president.
“I do apologize for the fact that those images from other places got mixed in, and that in trying to be timely in my response, I did not verify,” Cauce wrote in response to Majid. “That is 100% my fault. I received literally hundreds of emails, letters with images, etc. throughout this past year from individuals who felt hurt and upset by image[s] they were seeing on our campus (and its quite possible that they might have said on other campuses as well). When you asked me for proof I looked through the images I could find by searching for ‘Zionist’ ‘colonizer’ and “Jew” as well as looking through some folders to get you what you asked for – but this was done AFTER I wrote the May 15 message.”
The university provided an additional four photos to Majid and The Daily May 30. Three of these photos were identified as being on campus. The Daily could not independently verify the location of the fourth photo.
On UW’s campus, language used in the graffiti included “F-ck off Zionists” and “Save a life kill your local colonizer.” In Cauce’s response to Majid, she stated that she “made it clear long before May 15 that I draw a clear line between criticism of the ‘Israeli government’ and the specific targeting of ‘Zionists.’”
In light of the misattributed images, Majid and the Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return UW are calling for a formal apology and redaction of the May 15 statement.
“Clearly, pro-Palestinian members of the UW are undeserving of being labeled as ‘vile and antisemitic’ by the President,” the statement read in part. “What is truly vile is the ways proponents of Zionism have falsely and maliciously tried to discredit a movement protesting documented human rights violations. It is shameful and embarrassing that the administration of the UW became the driving force of this malice. President Cauce should retract the May 15th email and issue a public apology.”
The statement was made hours after people arrived on UW’s campus the morning of May 15 to find extensive vandalism on the exterior of buildings around campus including Suzzallo library and Gerberding Hall. Organizers of the Popular University for Gaza took responsibility for the vandalism, calling it an “intentional escalation” citing frustrations with the progress of their negotiations with the administration.
University spokesperson Victor Balta reiterated that the two unrelated photographs did not factor into the decision to send out the May 15 email.
“I can’t speak to the source of the images, however, as President Cauce said in the email that you shared, it is a relief to know that these two images were not from the UW,” university spokesperson Victor Balta said when asked about the misattributed photographs. “Regardless, the May 15 statement from President Cauce was not based on any one or two images. There was ample evidence of graffiti that reasonable people would consider to be antisemitic on campus, and this created an unwelcome and fearful environment for many in our community.”
Balta did not address whether the university has a process to verify images alleging hate speech occurred on campus.
Majid claimed that the university is yet to provide “a concrete example of antisemitic rhetoric from the liberated zone.” According to Majid, who also emphasized a recent guest editorial published in The Daily from Jewish community members, the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has been weaponized to against pro-Palestinian protesters.
In her most recent response to Majid, Cauce stated there is no doubt that the harms of the graffiti pales to the “loss of life and suffering in Gaza.” However, Majid countered that the allegation that the May 15 statement spurred increased hostility and put pro-Palestinian demonstrators at risk.
“Indeed I can assure you that the people who are most angry about the vandalism are also extremely angry at me because they do not feel I was strong enough in my condemnation, [and] they believe that by not punishing individuals who were in the encampment, that I rewarded that behavior,” Cauce said in her reply to Majid May 30.
Balta said the university is not considering retracting the statement.
Reach News Editor Sofia Schwarzwalder at news@dailyuw.com. X: @schwaarzy
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