By Vince Gasparini | September 9, 2024
When members of the University at Albany Student Association Senate convened for their weekly meeting in the Campus Center Boardroom on Wednesday night (9/4), they had three director appointments to fill: Director of Intercultural Affairs, Director of Student Group Affairs, and Director of Civic and Community Engagement, each of which comes with a $5,005 annual stipend.
While the first two appointments - Zachary Robinson and Brianna Thomas, respectively - passed with ease, the third was tabled for the Sept. 11 meeting because appointee Tahj Arnold’s sponsor - Senator Gabriel Kitt - was unable to attend after falling ill, and the reappointment bill lacked a co-sponsor.
In recent days, the appropriateness of Arnold’s reappointment has been questioned because of comments he made over the Israel-Palestine conflict during his tenure as Director of Civic and Community Engagement last semester.
A member of UAlbany Students for Justice in Palestine advocated for Arnold and for people in Gaza during public comment at Wednesday night's meeting.
Photo Credit: Vince Gasparini
Arnold has helped organize and participated in a number of protests on campus since the breakout of the Israel-Hamas War and is a member of UAlbany Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian student activist organization.
The role of the Director of Civic and Community Engagement is to provide students with community service opportunities both on and off campus, including by hosting events and working directly with student organizations.
"It's clear that we need to continue discussing this," Senator Marcos Perez, who motioned to table the appointment, told the ASP. "It's the Senators' prerogative to be able to maintain the stability of the government and the continuation of the office."
Director of Programming and Marketing Caleb Sapp expressed relief over the moving of Arnold’s bid for reappointment to the Sept. 11 meeting.
“I’m just so happy it was tabled … so we can have more discussion on the matter,” Sapp said. “I just think we need to really focus on who we let into these roles, especially when we’re supposed to represent all of the student body.”
Arnold’s suitability for the role as Director of Civic and Community Engagement was initially called into question after Sapp issued a dossier to members of the Senate on Aug. 30 titled “A Formal Request for Consideration,” which included screenshots of text messages sent by Arnold in a UAlbany SJP group chat, and also ones that were sent directly to Sapp.
In the report, Sapp argued that Arnold’s rhetoric was dismissive of issues of antisemitism and identity politics and that it “starkly contradicted the principles of respect, inclusivity, and integrity that our organization upholds.” He chiefly pointed out a text sent in a Students for Justice in Palestine group chat in which Arnold said that “Hamas fights for Palestine harder than any of us individually at all … their methods are violent but sometimes violence is the only way to free yourself.”
In a statement sent to Senators on Aug. 31 in response to Sapp, Arnold said that he meant Hamas exists as a response to “Israel’s violent settler colonialism,” and that the loss of human life is a “deeply unfavorable outcome in any circumstance.”
Another section of Sapp’s report includes a photo taken by Arnold of Sapp altered with a red triangle placed over his head and posted on a private Instagram story. “The red triangle, historically used by Nazi Germany to mark individuals as targets, was a clear and intentional act of intimidation,” Sapp stated in the dossier.
In response, Arnold wrote in his statement: “In social media spaces, the red triangle is used to identify individuals who are unkind and who operate under consistent contradictions which are dangerous to activism. It was never brought to my attention that this red triangle was used by Nazis.”
Nevertheless, in a subsequent response statement on Sept. 1, Sapp maintained that Arnold should have used his words more carefully.
Sapp also said in his response that at a benefit concert where Arnold helped raise $500 to assist a Palestinian family in fleeing Gaza, Arnold sought to “promote his personal brand, repeatedly encouraging attendees to tag his personal Instagram page alongside the cause for Palestine.”
Sapp’s contention is that these actions, which occurred during Arnold’s tenure as Director of Civic and Community Engagement last semester, are inappropriate for someone holding that position.
In a statement to the ASP regarding their exchanges, Arnold said “I am nowhere near a radical or an extremist, but rather I am a human raised on the values of love and mutual aid. It is uncomfortable watching tens of thousands of my brothers and sisters in Palestine be slaughtered.”
“Caleb Sapp’s attempt to paint me as a Nazi and antisemite demonstrates the lengths which he and other dangerous actors are willing to go to suppress the loud collective voice of student activists,” he said.
The dispute between Sapp and Arnold has had repercussions for them both. The Student Association Executive Branch suspended Sapp from his role as Director of Programming and Marketing to “allow time for an investigation,” into the conflict between the two, and barred Arnold from participating at the UAlbany Block Party on Sept. 2.
Sapp challenged the suspension in the SA’s Supreme Court, but was reinstated on Sept. 5 and his claims were subsequently dismissed.
At last week’s SA meeting, Sapp said he was trying to raise concerns about the suitability of Arnold being Director of Civic and Community Engagement, noting “it was not someone’s ideology that was at stake.”
Arnold was also in attendance and spoke during public comment. He reflected fondly on his tenure as Director of Civic and Community Engagement last semester, then spent the remainder of his comment time advocating for improved housing conditions in the city of Albany, concern for students facing food insecurity, and calling attention to Israel’s launch of a military operation in the West Bank.
“I got to be a leader, I got to be a friend,” Arnold told the Student Association, referring to his role as an SA director. “But most importantly, I got to be an advocate for the stuff I believe in.”