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AUGUSTA, Maine — A small Maine college defended itself Monday after a group of Republican lawmakers accused the school of antisemitism because it posted a photo of students calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
College of the Atlantic, the private ecology-focused school in Bar Harbor with roughly 350 students, posted four photos last week to its Instagram account showing its delegation that attended the recent United Nations climate conference in Dubai. One showed several students joining others in holding a banner calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
That caused Rep. Nathan Carlow, R-Buxton, to lead 17 Republican lawmakers in sending a Friday letter to Darron Collins, the college’s president, saying the school is isolating Jewish students and this kind of rhetoric will “embolden violent, Jew-fearing extremists here at home.”
The lawmakers asked Collins, who announced in August he is stepping down as president at the end of this academic year after more than 12 years in charge, to remove the content, noting Hamas has vowed to eradicate Jews in Israel and that the calls for a ceasefire “implicitly invite and expressly contemplate the continued murder, rape and abduction” of Jewish civilians.
College of the Atlantic “unequivocally and without hesitation refuses to tolerate antisemitism, or any hate speech, in any of its iterations, which can include anti-muslim, anti-LGBTQ+, or any speech or action attacking people for their identities,” spokesperson Rob Levin said Monday.
The photos, which also included demonstrators holding signs and banners calling for “climate justice” and “no carbon markets,” showed students calling for peace and not engaging in hate speech, he said.
“They are attacking no one,” Levin said. “We stand by them.”
The group of Republicans also criticized the college’s Instagram account for liking a comment on the post that said “Free Palestine.” Levin said the school has a “general practice of ‘liking’ comments on our posts as a way of encouraging engagement.” Carlow said if the college “was interested in peace in the Middle East, they’d be calling for the destruction of Hamas terrorists.”
Universities and academic leaders around the country have faced pressure over their responses to student protests since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Israel responded with an ongoing assault in Gaza, an area that Hamas has controlled since 2007.
A high-profile example of the tension came this month during a U.S. House hearing on antisemitism when lawmakers pressed the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT on whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate conduct policies. Penn President Liz Magill later resigned after declining to give U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, a yes or no answer on whether it would violate campus policies.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 — most of them civilians killed in savage ways — and took scores of hostages. Israel’s military responded with an air and ground offensive in Gaza. It has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to territorial health ministry totals that do not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
The significant escalation following decades of conflict between Israel and Palestine has led to growing international calls for a ceasefire, particularly amid the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israeli forces killing three hostages held by Hamas last week.
Ceasefire calls have split Jewish groups and peace activists on whether they are appropriate or an antisemitic demand for Israel to not defend itself. The United Nations voted to endorse a ceasefire last week, but the U.S. vetoed a binding resolution on that topic before that, and opposition to a ceasefire is mainstream among American lawmakers.
Levin, the College of the Atlantic spokesperson, said if any of the recent social media photos contained hate speech, the students would have been disciplined.
“While it is reasonable for people to disagree about politics, that disagreement is distinctly different from attacking someone based on identity, which is what hate speech and antisemitism are,” Levin said.
