Last night I was feeling pretty frustrated. Weren’t you? I felt powerless to do anything about the Muslim Student Association vandalism, and I felt angry at newspapers irresponsibly playing up the whole “Brandeis is a university of the Jooz there must be religious strife on campus” thing.
That uncool move of vandalizing the MSA suite did not and does not reflect the values of the Brandeis community. I know it and you know it. Meanwhile I was still looking for a positive way to deal with the whole deal.
So last night I whipped up an open letter to the Muslim community from the rest of the Brandeis community:
We, the students, faculty, and staff of Brandeis University, love and support our dear Muslim friends and family.
We are deeply saddened by the recent vandalism of your student association suite and the theft of Imam Eid’s Koran.
This is unacceptable. We reject this hateful and juvenile act. It deserves to be roundly condemned and is an embarrassment to this community. We fully support and stand by you in this troubled time.
Know this – the vandalism does not reflect the sentiments of the Brandeis community or our values.
We students, faculty, staff all want you to know that you have our friendship and loyalty.
Do you agree? You can sign the open letter here.
I put up a facebook event advertising the open letter at around 2am last night. 8 hours later, there are 187 confirmed guests and 134 co-signers of the letter.
300 people is about 10% of the student body on campus. If we reach that amount I will personally print out the petition and hand deliver it to Imam Eid, as well as sending it to the Boston Globe.
This is the most positive way I can think of to deal with what’s going on. Sign here.
I gladly join with other members of the Brandeis community in protesting this outrage. Brandeis belongs to us all and we all should be secure at this campus. As such, this vandalism was attack and an affront to us all.