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The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Seven GW students admit to hanging controversial posters

The Letter



The Poster


Click here for a PDF of the exclusive letter to The Hatchet
from seven students Tuesday night admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

Breaking NewsTuesday, Oct. 9 9:35 p.m.

See our previous articles here (Oct. 9, “After meeting, mixed views on anti-Muslim posters”) and here (Oct. 8, “Anti-Muslim posters cause stir, administrative response”).

A group of seven GW students sent an e-mail to The Hatchet late Tuesday night admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

The students – Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierney, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah – said their motives were misinterpreted. Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness hung the posters in opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, an event being held beginning Oct. 22.

Kokesh, a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war. Nwigwe and Rammah are also graduate students.

“It is to our great dismay that the student body and the media missed the clear, if subtle, message of our flier: the hyperbolic nature of the flier was aimed at exposing Islamophobic racism,” the e-mail said.

Posters hung around campus read, “Hate Muslims? So do we!!!”

Tracy Schario, a University spokesperson, said that the University Police Department is still investigating the incident.

“At a minimum, these flyers violated the posting policy and did not properly use the University logo and they posted flyers without permission,” Schario said. “That’s, at a minimum, the offense.”

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is being held at GW and sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative student group. It will feature several speakers – including controversial conservative author David Horowitz – slated to discuss radical Islam.

One-hundred and forty two colleges nationwide will host the event, according to its Web site. Horowitz is organizing the week.

“While the poster, even if taken seriously was not intended to cause any real harm, the systematic and glorified type of racism represented by this event is being imposed upon us from dangerous divisive outside forces” the e-mail said.

In the letter, members of the organization said their intent was to shed light on the week – which they called racist.

-Jake Sherman, Jessica Calefati, Andrew Ramonas and Andrew Nacin contributed to this report.

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