Censorship at the Welcome Center: How an Instagram post turned into a controversy

The New School Welcome Center’s Instagram page is known for its casual posts that give their followers insight into daily life around New York City. But on Wednesday, Oct. 18, a student worker made a post reccounting her experience during a university-sponsored trip to Palestine – and it sparked an unexpected censorship scandal within the university.

While the post had been vetted and approved by both her managers and the Welcome Center’s media team beforehand, she woke up on Thursday morning to find the comment section flooded by Instagram users berating her for the post.

Within the hour, she was informed that the university had deemed that the content was against school policy and demanded that it be removed immediately. 

The student who made the post asked to remain anonymous for her own safety.

“The whole thing was about speaking up and telling the truth, and I was silenced from the beginning.” 

The Welcome Center’s Instagram account is predominantly run by student workers. Each week, a member of their team is tasked with an “Instagram takeover,” where they are expected to post pre-planned content each day to showcase student life at The New School. 

Ilhan Saferali, a student worker at the Welcome Center who has previously done such a takeover, explains that everyone is encouraged to partake at one point or another during their time working at the Welcome Center.

While every takeover can look different, Safareli said, “The whole idea is to have a student-directed social media platform that demonstrates the day-to-day life of New School students without the school’s direct influence. The intention is to highlight what students are doing, their perspective, and what’s going on around the city.”

Before handing over the password to the account, the Welcome Center team has to approve of the content “down to every minute detail — what hashtags I’m going to use on each post, what I’m planning to post on the story, the photos, the captions, which accounts I’m going to tag. The amount of approval [needed before posting] is granular,” the student worker who made Thursday’s now-deleted post said.

While her post was being vetted, her managers shared a document titled “Guidance on Social Media: The Israel-Hamas War.” “At the time, the guideline document was very brief,” she said, “it was mostly a reflection of what the university had issued to address the Israel-Palestine conflict.” 

Even so, she had made sure that the caption was well within the guidelines she had been given. Her managers even prepared her for the inevitable controversy the post would likely be met with, warning her to protect herself before giving her the go-ahead to post.

“Every single post on that page is student opinion – that’s the whole point!”

“Almost immediately, there were people responding in the DMs and comments saying that this is not a place to express personal opinions,” she said, adding that she had disregarded the incoming comments as she felt they clearly didn’t understand the point of the page. 

“The day before, I had posted my favorite dumpling place, and the day after I was planning to post my favorite study spot. It’s all my opinion. Every single post on that page is student opinion — that’s the whole point of a takeover!” 

An excerpt from the caption read as follows:

“Living in the US, it’s easy to feel powerless about the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the daily terror inflicted on Gaza. It hits a sore spot for me because I was able to spend two months in Palestine this past summer through the New School’s International Field Program, which allows students to extend learning beyond the classroom and gain field experience. My public policy interests are transportation & mobility, housing, and community safety, so this opportunity seemed perfect.”

“The latest horrific attack on Gaza is a direct consequence of the escalating oppression of Palestinians, but it was long in the making. Moving forward, international solidarity is crucial to reverse the atrocious conditions that Palestinians live in. We must say no to the cleansing of Gaza, no to oppression, and demand a ceasefire. As innocent lives are taken, we must speak up and demand answers from those who are meant to protect and represent us.”

In spite of all of the backlash, the post had garnered an immense amount of support and appreciation from students who felt like the university wasn’t being vocal enough about the global conflict. 

The student said she was aware of the risk she had taken posting the statement, but she believed that its potential impact far outweighed her fears. 

The plethora of positive messages she received thanking her for sharing her experience reaffirmed her belief, with one comment reading “this is extremely important, thank you for sharing.” Another account reposted it to their Instagram story, adding that “whoever posted this today on @thenewschoolwelcomecenter’s page, thanks for the reminder that a human who is alive and capable of emotions actually runs this stupid account. This damned campus will be painted if you get doxxed.” 

Allegedly, there had been several threats made by donors and parents to rescing financial contributions to the school.

By Thursday morning, the post was being heavily disputed among her coworkers. Staff members had reached out to her to see if she was okay, and to ask how she felt about the post being potentially removed from the Instagram page. “I was like, absolutely do not take the post down. If you want, I can turn off the comments, but I’m not taking the post down,” she said.

An hour later, a fellow member of the Welcome Center team informed her that the post had, in fact, been deleted.

They claimed to have tried their best to advocate against the post’s removal, but the Welcome Center staff had received communication from the “higher-ups” that the post must be taken down. Since the administration had gotten involved, the situation was out of their control. 

When she came into the office later that morning, her managers expressed concern about “higher-ups” having gotten involved, as they felt like their jobs were in jeopardy. Allegedly, several complaints had been made by donors and parents who had threatened to rescind financial contributions and tuition payments to the school. 

Despite the fact that she had been instructed to prepare her own statement regarding the post’s removal, the Welcome Center staff proceeded to post a statement that had been issued by the administration.

The administration’s statement claimed that the post had been removed because it was against the university’s social media guidelines. What the statement failed to mention however, was that the guidelines had been altered after she had already made the post. 

She said the statement was a misrepresentation of her stance and opinion.

“When I showed [the initial takeover post] to everyone on Sunday, I was within the community guidelines,” she said. But before she had the chance to see that the guidelines had been edited, her access to the document had been revoked. When she was alerted to the new guidelines, she noticed the specific things that were seemingly referencing her post. 

“For them to say that I did not abide by the community guidelines, that they made after I posted my post and then didn’t let me see, is just miles away from the truth. I had no way to defend or represent myself because they said that I wasn’t able to post my own statement. Even though I had already sent my statement in for review, according to them, any additional posts at this time will inflame the situation further,” she said.

When she reached out to management to ask them to grant her access to the newly updated community guidelines, she was informed that from now on, student workers would no longer be able to access them.

“When the updated document was shared with the Welcome Center’s office, it came with the [following] instruction — ‘these policy documents are internal and not to be shared with student workers,’ ” she said.

“I don’t think it’s cool that the school is silencing anything.”

David Suoth, who is currently a first-year graduate student at Parsons, first became aware of the situation through supportive reposts on people’s Instagram stories. “Good for you for humanizing Palestinian lives during this moment on a very public platform that I feel like people are paying attention to,” he said.

Suoth noted the hypocrisy in the university claiming that the post was deleted due to students feeling unsafe, with little regard for what Palestinian students on campus are experiencing. “Actually stand up and support your students. If you are actually thinking about the safety and feelings of your students, what about the Palestinian students at The New School? What have you said to support them? They are not being seen, they are not being heard, they are actively being dehumanized in the media and the rhetoric of [the administration] is a direct reflection of that,” Suoth said.

“If you’re going to say unsafe, unsafe for who? How are Palestinian students feeling when you fail to recognize them as students and as human beings? You are clearly only listening to one side of the student body that feels unsafe,” South said. “You are publicly dehumanizing one group of students in order to uplift another.”

Another student, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “This isn’t new. We’ve never received any support, statements, or emails for any Middle Eastern countries that have been actively at war. There is no issue with the school issuing a statement in support of Jewish and Israeli students, but keep that same standard. If you’re going to speak out, speak out for everyone.”