I’ve been pretty quiet about the recent uproar at our university. I was really upset when Megan Marzac posted her “blood bucket challenge.”
I’ve been pretty quiet about the recent uproar at our university. I was really upset when Megan Marzac posted her “blood bucket challenge.” Not because of Megan’s politics on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but because she did it in a manner that engulfed Student Senate in a controversy we had no part in.
Nearly a hundred students worked to elect OU’s first student power ticket. We ran to empower students in a more decentralized manner and to demonstrate the lack of real shared governance at Ohio University.
This could have been a time where we spent our energy mobilizing new allies on campus to build better wages for student workers and fighting against excessive pay for top administrators. It’s been a lost opportunity, but I’m confident that in the coming weeks we’ll be able to refocus on issues that impact all students on campus.
We’re all human, and I appreciate Megan’s apology to both Student Senate and the broad campus for any misconception that she was speaking on behalf of anyone but herself.
I have to say I’ve been taken aback by those students and non-students who’ve made threatening or derogatory statements toward Megan as well as Arab students on campus. The official statement by Alpha Epsilon Pi that was read out loud at our last Student Senate meeting declared that “Israel is a developed nation, unlike the Middle East.” Hillel has now taken out Facebook ads with a video of the speech to help spread this message. Another student associated with Bobcats for Israel got up at the senate meeting and implied that Jewish students who don’t support the actions of the Israeli state aren’t real Jews.
I’ve have had four separate Jewish students come up to me to express concern by the manner in which Rabbi Danielle has been attempting to speak on behalf of all Jews on campus. Anyone who chooses to speak on behalf of an entire ethnic or religious group does nothing more than silence voices and shows their own lack of leadership. The Jewish community is broad and diverse, and no Jewish student on this campus deserves to have their identity or culture expropriated and used to someone else’s political ends.
Students suffer from the negative discourse and intimidation tactics that have been deployed on this campus. It’s time to take this issue out of student government and into a respectful open forum where people can represent only themselves.
Will Klatt is an Ohio University master’s student.
