Reed College Under Fire For Anti-Jewish Article

The article went on to say that students asked the chemistry department for a chemical to conduct "Jewsperiments" and that there was now a "towering crematorium" where the library once stood.

The editor of The Pamphlette, Glenn Harrison, 21, said the article was supposed to have been a response to a prior article in Reed's student newspaper criticizing an earlier Pamphlette spoof of Anne Frank's diary as enabling "real genocide."

Harrison said that they found the assertion in the Reed’s student newspaper so absurd that their goal with this article was “to satirize this notion by driving it to its logical extreme."

There appears to be a lot of confusion about who wrote what and when. Apparently there have been a series of articles written by humor publications at both Lewis and Clark College and Reed College. The problem is that anyone not following all that has been written gets lost in the trail, and this type of anti-Semitic sentiment can become the end result.

The notion of conducting “Jewsperiments” and gassing all Jewish people on campus is certainly an extreme. It was also a demonstration of extreme poor judgment.

Reed President Colin Diver apologized to Lewis & Clark interim President Jane Atkinson and sent an e-mail to the Reed campus stating that The Pamphlette had displayed "a remarkable insensitivity to the deeply held feelings engendered by some of the most horrific and painful episodes of our collective history."

In turn, the staff of the paper has publicly apologized for being "negligent as editors and members of the community.”

While this article, published October 17th was intended to be a spoof, and all involved have apologized, it appears the apologies are not enough. Reed College is now getting national attention for this article, along with accusations of anti-Semitic sentiment on the campus.

Many people, including one outraged student, Leslie Zukor, are saying that they understand this was meant to be a joke, but they are having a hard time finding any humor in it.

In another strange and horrific turn of irony, Lewis and Clark College had just experienced its own incident of vandalism in a school bathroom, where someone left swastikas on the bathroom floor. The editors at "The Pamphlette" said they weren't aware of this when they used Lewis and Clark College in their "joke."

Resources:
Apology not enough
College president apologizes for spoof