End Antisemitism at Washington College
The Issue
Dear members of the Washington College Board of Visitors and Governors:
It has now been several weeks since Washington College posted on its social media and in its Magazine an article expressing its “pride” in Melat Kiros '18, a politician from Colorado who recently unseated a long-standing incumbent to win her party’s nomination for Congress.
The school’s essay about Ms. Kiros was uncritical. Many in Washington College’s community felt that it was highly inappropriate for the school to promote her given that there are many allegations of extremism against Ms. Kiros, including assertions that she is anti-American and antisemitic.
These are reasonable contentions.
Ms. Kiros has blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks against it on September 11, 2001 that claimed almost 3,000 innocent American lives. Her own Democratic political colleagues have called her “antisemitic,” and Colorado’s Democratic party gubernatorial nominee, Phil Weiser, said that he would confront her about her antisemitism.
The charges of antisemitism against Ms. Kiros are not frivolous. They were leveled after she refused to characterize a fire-bomb attack on Jewish Coloradans by a terrorist as antisemitic.
The decision by the leadership of Washington College to promote Ms. Kiros and express pride in her accomplishment, despite her well-known and public prejudices, comes at a highly dangerous moment. We live in an era when the world’s only Jewish nation is under constant military and rhetorical attack. Jewish students in the United States have recently been chased and chastised, beaten and barred from their own campuses. The administrators of their schools have been caught, in unguarded moments, berating their Jewish students.
At a Congressional hearing, university presidents admitted under oath that calling for the genocide of the Jews did not go against their community standards. Like the Coloradans Ms. Kiros dismissed, Jews all over the world have recently been violently attacked and killed in beatings, shootings and bombings.
Embracing Ms. Kiros is not surprising at Washington College, a school with its own entrenched culture that has not always been welcoming to Jewish students over the years. Jewish enrollment briefly spiked during the short tenure of the school’s only known Jewish president, Mitchel Reiss (2010-2014), but as soon as President Reiss departed Jewish enrollment plummeted and it remains low to this day.
Some would like to paint the article about Ms. Kiros as a free speech issue. Yet campus publications, whether printed or online, are utilized as marketing venues not news sites. That is evidenced by the fact that they are run by the vice-president of marketing. Also, if the piece had genuine news value why did it not tell Ms. Kiros’s full story instead of whitewashing it to excise the highly problematic aspects of her campaign and tactics?
Our purpose in drafting and sending this note is for the undersigned to inform you that we do not believe that promoting the interests of extremist politicians with antisemitic, socialist, and anti-American views comports with the long-standing ideals and aspirations of the school that is known as “the first chartered college in the new nation.”
Washington College has been committed from the start to George Washington’s democratic values and also to the enlightened thinking enhanced by an education in the liberal arts.
In keeping with that, we ask Washington College to retract its statement and offer a public apology to its alumni, students and other stakeholders. The Board should make personnel changes and discharge those who wrote, approved, and/or published this article. Further, the board should institute a study of Washington College’s culture to determine whether it is welcoming to Jews, or if it has fostered antisemitism.
We believe the school needs to acknowledge its unresolved problem with antisemitism and correct it immediately.
In the sober light of reflection Washington College needs to confront the fact that it is not in fact welcoming to all qualified students even though its current inability to attract enough new qualified students is an existential threat.
How is it possible that those two situations could simultaneously exist?
That’s the question that needs to be answered.
136
The Issue
Dear members of the Washington College Board of Visitors and Governors:
It has now been several weeks since Washington College posted on its social media and in its Magazine an article expressing its “pride” in Melat Kiros '18, a politician from Colorado who recently unseated a long-standing incumbent to win her party’s nomination for Congress.
The school’s essay about Ms. Kiros was uncritical. Many in Washington College’s community felt that it was highly inappropriate for the school to promote her given that there are many allegations of extremism against Ms. Kiros, including assertions that she is anti-American and antisemitic.
These are reasonable contentions.
Ms. Kiros has blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks against it on September 11, 2001 that claimed almost 3,000 innocent American lives. Her own Democratic political colleagues have called her “antisemitic,” and Colorado’s Democratic party gubernatorial nominee, Phil Weiser, said that he would confront her about her antisemitism.
The charges of antisemitism against Ms. Kiros are not frivolous. They were leveled after she refused to characterize a fire-bomb attack on Jewish Coloradans by a terrorist as antisemitic.
The decision by the leadership of Washington College to promote Ms. Kiros and express pride in her accomplishment, despite her well-known and public prejudices, comes at a highly dangerous moment. We live in an era when the world’s only Jewish nation is under constant military and rhetorical attack. Jewish students in the United States have recently been chased and chastised, beaten and barred from their own campuses. The administrators of their schools have been caught, in unguarded moments, berating their Jewish students.
At a Congressional hearing, university presidents admitted under oath that calling for the genocide of the Jews did not go against their community standards. Like the Coloradans Ms. Kiros dismissed, Jews all over the world have recently been violently attacked and killed in beatings, shootings and bombings.
Embracing Ms. Kiros is not surprising at Washington College, a school with its own entrenched culture that has not always been welcoming to Jewish students over the years. Jewish enrollment briefly spiked during the short tenure of the school’s only known Jewish president, Mitchel Reiss (2010-2014), but as soon as President Reiss departed Jewish enrollment plummeted and it remains low to this day.
Some would like to paint the article about Ms. Kiros as a free speech issue. Yet campus publications, whether printed or online, are utilized as marketing venues not news sites. That is evidenced by the fact that they are run by the vice-president of marketing. Also, if the piece had genuine news value why did it not tell Ms. Kiros’s full story instead of whitewashing it to excise the highly problematic aspects of her campaign and tactics?
Our purpose in drafting and sending this note is for the undersigned to inform you that we do not believe that promoting the interests of extremist politicians with antisemitic, socialist, and anti-American views comports with the long-standing ideals and aspirations of the school that is known as “the first chartered college in the new nation.”
Washington College has been committed from the start to George Washington’s democratic values and also to the enlightened thinking enhanced by an education in the liberal arts.
In keeping with that, we ask Washington College to retract its statement and offer a public apology to its alumni, students and other stakeholders. The Board should make personnel changes and discharge those who wrote, approved, and/or published this article. Further, the board should institute a study of Washington College’s culture to determine whether it is welcoming to Jews, or if it has fostered antisemitism.
We believe the school needs to acknowledge its unresolved problem with antisemitism and correct it immediately.
In the sober light of reflection Washington College needs to confront the fact that it is not in fact welcoming to all qualified students even though its current inability to attract enough new qualified students is an existential threat.
How is it possible that those two situations could simultaneously exist?
That’s the question that needs to be answered.
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Petition created on July 30, 2026