At UR, learning the price of belonging

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The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza has reverberated across U.S. college campuses, profoundly affecting many students at those institutions. 

I am one of them. The experience has impacted both my sense of community and of personal responsibility.

I’ve commuted to school every year at the University of Rochester.

Narm Nathan

Commuting requires you to engage twice as hard with your campus to feel connected with your college community. You don’t get the chance to share a residential hall with your peers, bond over dining hall food, or immerse yourself in campus culture.

As a result, I was lost as a freshman and a sophomore. That changed when I was offered the opportunity to create the first data desk at the Campus Times, UR’s student newspaper. It marked a turning point in my relationship with my campus and also brought unique challenges.

It wasn’t until I began to field stories that I realized how much my lack of community was a detriment to my writing. While everyone else in the newsroom felt comfortable attending campus events, speaking to and interviewing peers, and understanding what was going on around campus, it was a completely different world to me. 

Bigger than my difficulties, however, was the focus many of us had on the war in Gaza and its impact on campus. In the wake of the Oct. 7 events, the CT published a special edition on Israel and Palestine. As protests grew on campus, so did our responsibilities. 

April saw the construction of UR’s Gaza solidarity encampment, first on the smaller Wilson Quadrangle and later in front of the Rush Rhees building. I was nowhere near experienced enough to assist our reporters with the work they were doing, but there was nothing more I wanted than to be in the loop and help in any way I could. I watched protests, and coordinated live updates on unfolding events and developments between pro-Palestine protestors and members of the university’s administration.

The end of the semester followed mere weeks later—and with it, the dissolution of the newsroom. If reporters and editors weren’t preparing to go home for the summer, they were walking the stage at commencement weekend. I became the only student journalist still on campus who could report on the encampment and its devolving relationship with the university.

I spoke with individuals who claimed they were being harassed by drones surveying them at night, felt intimidated by the newfound presence of unknown armed security, and believed their demands had fallen on deaf ears. In compiling our report on Patriot Protection and Investigations, I learned to treat these claims with care. I needed to dig deeper for the truth, operate with objectivity, and honor and protect my sources.

In my last fall semester, the CT newsroom was more robust than it had been in years: September’s print edition was 16 pages, the most since 2017; print circulation was up by 40 percent; and our staff size was the largest we’ve had in six years. I held two editorial positions, and wrote analytics-based pieces that further raised the impact of our newspaper. For the first time in the four years I’d been at UR, I felt like I finally belonged.

I would soon learn that sense of belonging came at a price. I had yearned for years to feel like a part of the community, and now that I had, I realized the responsibility that came with the work I produced. Campus protests grew with each event in the Middle East and with it our workload. We devoted countless hours to the challenges that came with covering unrest—from stringing together our sources from each protest and carefully editing articles with extensive political and opinionated language to having reporters present and available anytime we heard of a new development or unfolding event.

We had our own priorities—academics, extracurriculars, and our future careers. What united us was a mutual understanding that we had to represent each other; not just as students, but as journalists.

That meant that when “wanted” posters were distributed across campus, we sent our photographers first to gather the information necessary to put together a story. We sat for hours in the newsroom, carefully checking words, claims, and arguments so that our community had the information it needed to process what the administration had described as an event that required investigation by the FBI and Anti-Defamation League.

I watched as: 

■ newsrooms across the nation ran with public statements and constructed a narrative without the information we possessed—the contents of the posters; 

■ the university attempted to sway us against using that content (we simply wanted to inform; we had no stake in the politics of the situation);

■ professors attempted to shame our writers by criticizing the article during class, and

■ the UR Department of Public Safety asked us to refrain from publishing imagery of those identified in the posters.

When students are arrested, thrown into unmarked vans, and held in the basement of jail with little insight into their future, it is our job as reporters to tell those stories. At the same time, we need to consider the fact that not only are we their peers, we’re also members of the institutions that serve us all. Though our reporting is independent, we are united by the campus we belong to, and the community we all contribute to. 

As I graduate in May, there is one part of me that relishes the success and belonging I craved for so long. Yet that celebration comes at the cost of bearing witness to the ways in which our campus community is impacted by the world around it. 

Narm Nathan is a former Rochester Beacon intern, a senior at the University of Rochester and a member of the Beacon Oasis Project’s inaugural cohort. 

The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing  [email protected]

2 thoughts on “At UR, learning the price of belonging

  1. Narm Nathan’s article presents an incomplete and one-sided narrative about the defamation posters targeting professors and administrators at the University of Rochester. While the writer portrays the students responsible as “innocent kids” subjected to unfair treatment, the reality is that their actions were deliberate, malicious, and calculated.

    These students didn’t engage in harmless pranks or impulsive acts. They meticulously:
    1. Identified and targeted specific individuals, singling them out after careful investigation.
    2. Designed and printed hateful posters on high-quality materials.
    3. Selected specific strong adhesives to ensure the posters couldn’t be easily removed – planned and excecuted.
    4. Coordinated and executed their actions with precision, selecting a late night time, clearly demonstrating premeditation and shared intent.

    Such actions are not the work of naïve youths. They mirror the hateful, methodical behavior of anti-Semitic individuals in Europe before the Holocaust. Those individuals similarly used propaganda to dehumanize and intimidate, laying the groundwork for violence. Ignoring this historical parallel diminishes the gravity of the students’ actions and the threat they pose to a community that deserves protection.

    The claim that these students were treated unfairly when facing legal consequences is unfounded. Hate crimes are serious, and accountability is essential. By framing these individuals as victims while ignoring the premeditated and harmful nature of their actions, the article undermines justice and emboldens such behavior.

    Moreover, the piece glosses over the cultural and historical context. The individuals targeted by these posters were defamed solely for supporting Israel, a democratic nation facing existential threats from groups rooted in ideologies of hatred and violence. It is chillingly reminiscent of the scapegoating and vilification of Jews before the Holocaust, when hate was disguised as activism and propaganda was used as a tool for oppression.

    While it is essential to maintain journalistic objectivity and hold institutions accountable, it is equally crucial to call out when actions cross the line from free expression to intimidation and hate. This wasn’t a harmless protest; it was a targeted campaign of harassment. Such behavior has no place in a campus community—or in any community.

    We must confront hate wherever it manifests and ensure those who perpetuate it are held accountable. To do otherwise is to turn a blind eye to the lessons of history and to allow hate to take root once again.

  2. Hi Narm,
    I think your work at the Campus Times has been very solid, and I appreciate you providing information that cannot be found elsewhere. I appreciate your efforts to be objective and provide information.
    And it is with that with which I must offer a critique to your point. You certainly throw a lot of sympathy towards those with the pro-palestine viewpoint. And that sympathy is important. The 4 students who were arrested are all young students, between 18-21. This has forever changed their lives. But it is amazing you do not offer the same sympathy to those targeted on the wanted posters. Imagine waking up, seeing your face all over social media, and learning that you are being accused of something you strongly deny. I know there is a debate to be had about the political opinions regarding this conflict, but many of these professors and administrators did not want to be involved in this manner.

    Regardless of whether this is or is not antisemetic, it is undeniable that these faculty were targeted due to their support of Israel- which is not exactly uncommon in this country, and that there are always going to be disagreements in areas of higher learning, such as college campuses. Perhaps the voices of those targeted should also be considered then.

    Furthermore, by publishing their information you did make them public targets. You can find your campus times article linked in a reddit thread.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/URochester/comments/1gt5a7l/why_did_the_school_feel_the_need_to_blatantly_lie/

    This is not the only example I have seen either. Literally anyone can go and google these faculty, and by publishing their names you make them open to direct attack.

    I ask why you could not have simply omitted their names in your article. Still list the accusations and then include some affiliation.

    For example, you could note an administrator involved in public safety was wanted for whatever the poster said, and include the accusation without including personal information.

    You note individuals claim they are being surveyed by drones. That may be true. I don’t know. I don’t think you know. And I certainly didn’t see any names associated with these claims. Because to publish those names would render said individuals open to digital attack and harassment.

    What is undeniable is that other individuals were targeted by posters. That was necessary to report on. But you did not need to include names. You could have even asked the targeted individuals for comment. The simple fact that the four arrested students tried to conceal their identity suggests that they had some idea that what they were doing would not be well received by the University.

    All of this is to say that I think your reporting is incomplete. It is important to consider every voice; you only appeared to have quoted one side.

    In late May, a group of Jewish students spoke to the faculty senate about their experiences on campus. This received no coverage. But I know it happened. I was there. I was one of those student presenters.

    All of this is to say that there is a broad array of opinions on campus. They all should be heard. I sympathize with the UR students who were arrested, because their lives are forever changed. I am saddened that either drones are spying on our students, or that students feel they are being spied on.

    I am also saddened at the discomfort of pro-Israel students. And saddened that you have not mentioned their voices in this discussion.

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