by Jackson Walker
Following the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, students and faculty at Hamilton College received an email denoting some of them as white supremacists and calling for the admissions office to better block such students from enrolling in the future.
It was part of a larger push to grow a “defund the police” effort at the private, New York college.
The email came from leadership at the school’s Student Assembly and was signed by President Saphire Ruiz as well as Fall Vice President Eric Stenzel and Spring Vice President Christian Hernandez Barragan.
In their email, the campus leaders reacted to the verdict and explained that members of the Hamilton community had much more work to do in creating an inclusive environment.
“We believe in a better world where community safety means community, rehabilitation, and restorative justice. And we will fight for it,” the email reads in part.
Assembly members were also very adamant in encouraging a push to defund the police in their email.
“Racist (not ‘racialized’) American policing should be the one on trial. And it’s guilty. Derek Chauvin was a sacrificial lamb for police across the country to avoid any measure of reform or systemic change,” they wrote. “Even now, Democratic and Republican officials alike admit that this verdict reduces the pressure on them to take action. We can’t let up. We need to defund the police.”
Finally, the email called some members of Hamilton “white supremacists,” but did not name any specific groups.
“But we also want to bring attention to the fact that there are white supremacists enrolled at Hamilton today. They’ve slandered racial justice advocates on social media platforms, used racial slurs at Black and brown community events, stalked students of color, called Black Lives Matter protesters ‘rabid dogs’ and scapegoated immigrants for climate change in a media publication on campus, and much more,” they wrote.
The email also suggests that the Office of Admissions at the school should implement rigorous measures which would screen for white supremacy in its applicants.
“We need to prevent these types of people from entering our community and in doing so protect the growing population of Black and brown students at Hamilton. That is why for the rest of our time in office, we will make it a priority to have conversations with the Office of Admissions to ensure rigorous procedures are put in place to ensure as few white supremacists as possible slip through the cracks in making it on campus,” the email states.
Media relations at Hamilton College did not respond to a request for comment from The College Fix on how the school could implement such a measure in its application process.
Robert Paquette, co-founder of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and former professor at Hamilton College, explained in a phone interview with The College Fix that the email represents a growing movement at Hamilton to chill left-wing criticism on the campus.
“Hamilton college has been transformed over the last quarter century, it is very sharply left,” he said.
Paquette also examined the claim of the presence of white supremacists on campus, explaining that opposition to politically leftist ideology is often labeled as such.
“Basically for them, a white supremacist is anyone who disagrees with their agenda,” he said. “My Alexander Hamilton Institute is called ‘white supremacist,’ we are constantly smeared this way, not just by students, but by faculty.”
The College Fix did not receive a response from Hamilton’s Student Assembly when asked via email for more details about the alleged white supremacists on campus.
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College Fix contributor Jackson Walker is a student at the University of Wisconsin majoring in journalism reporting and English creative writing. He writes and edits for the Arts section of the Badger Herald. He is also a member of the UW Marching band, which has taken him to two NFL stadiums and the Rose Bowl.
Photo “Hamilton College Chapel, Clinton, N.Y.” by Chuck Miller CC 2.0.
