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Iraq War and Campus Response

Overview

Hamilton College’s response to the Iraq War (2003–2011) was sustained, multi-phase, and rooted in a campus activist infrastructure that pre-dated the invasion. Beginning in fall 2002 — when the Bush administration’s push for congressional authorization brought the Iraq question to every college campus — Hamilton students and faculty organized rallies, panels, poetry readings, and bus trips to national marches. The campus community sent contingents to anti-war demonstrations in New York City (October 2002 and February 2003), Washington, D.C. (September 2005), and Syracuse (September 2007), and again to New York City (October 2007). A pre-invasion campus walkout in March 2003 drew over 100 students and was attended by Dean of Students Flossie Mitchell. The Hamilton contingent marched in Washington behind a banner reading “Hamilton College for Peace,” and Professor of History Maurice Isserman served as the most visible faculty voice of dissent throughout. The Spectator’s opinion pages gave space to both anti-war writers and, notably, to pro-war voices and skeptics of protest’s efficacy. Unlike the Vietnam era — which produced Hamilton’s defining 1969 moratorium and 1970 spring strike — the Iraq War did not produce a single campus rupture but instead sustained a steady mobilization over five-plus years, driven primarily by a succession of student organizations: first PJAG (Peace and Justice Action Group) and then Students Against Violence.

Key Points

Pre-Invasion Campus Mobilization, Fall 2002

The Spectator documented anti-Iraq War sentiment at Hamilton well before the March 2003 invasion. As early as fall 2002, as Congress debated the Iraq War Authorization, Hamilton students participated in off-campus anti-war demonstrations. The October 25, 2002 Spectator ran a front-page article titled “Students participate in national, local peace protests,” reporting that Hamilton students and faculty attended a peace rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, October 26, prompted by the “US’s looming war against Iraq.” A photo accompanying the story showed “Hamilton students hold a banner designed by Professor of Art Juan Ormaza at a peace rally in Washington D.C.” A separate rally in New York City had also been attended by Hamilton community members. Also in October 2002, the Spectator’s opinion section published a pro-con pair of pieces under the headline “Should Hamilton students be protesting a war in Iraq?” — indicating that campus opinion was genuinely divided before the invasion began. The October 11, 2002 Spectator covered Congress’s passage of the Iraq War Resolution.

The same October 2002 period saw the Spectator document Isserman in the context of campus political debate. He had chaired a fall 2002 forum with conservative activist David Horowitz on the 1960s — a forum that invoked protest traditions directly relevant to the unfolding Iraq debate. In that September 20, 2002 coverage, Isserman is noted as the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History.

Barbara Ehrenreich, visiting Hamilton in fall 2002 to speak on poverty and low-wage work, concluded her lecture by taking a strong stance against a war with Iraq, arguing it was “being offered to us as a distraction from domestic problems.” This was documented in the Spectator.

Faculty Panel and Pre-Invasion Debate, Spring 2003

In late February 2003, the Government Department sponsored a six-professor panel in the Chapel under the title “Should the U.S. Attack Iraq?” Professors Alan Cafruny, Yael Aronoff, Peter Cannavo, Philip Klinkner, Steve Orvis, and Carlos Yordan each presented their views before opening the floor to audience questions. The panel was followed by a Poetry Reading for Peace. This was a structured, faculty-organized expression of engagement with the impending invasion, explicitly welcoming disagreement.

Also in February 2003, the Peace and Justice Action Group (PJAG) organized a bus trip to New York City on Saturday, February 15, for a national anti-war rally on First Avenue near the United Nations building. The Spectator described students traveling “on a bus with members of the Mohawk Valley Peace Coalition.” Professor Maurice Isserman was among the handful of faculty members who attended that New York City rally. Separately, Hamilton students and faculty attended a local anti-war rally on the Clinton Village Green, organized by a Quaker group and endorsed by PJAG. A candlelight vigil on campus also took place during this period.

Campus Walkout, March 5, 2003

The most newsworthy pre-invasion campus action was the “Books Not Bombs” walkout organized by PJAG on Wednesday, March 5, 2003 — part of a national strike coordinated by the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, with over 300 colleges participating nationwide. At Hamilton, the walkout was publicized through all-campus emails asking students to leave class at 1:40 p.m. and gather at the Chapel.

Over 100 students initially turned out, along with faculty members and Dean of Students Flossie Mitchell — whose attendance was unusual and constituted a quiet administrative expression of solidarity with student protest. College Chaplain Jeff McArn opened the event, delivering a keynote that drew on personal history to question the justice of the impending war. Following McArn’s address, organizers broke the crowd into groups to brainstorm both short-term and long-term ways to oppose the war and promote peace at the personal, organizational, and institutional levels.

Crucially, the walkout also attracted a visible counter-protest: several students gathered outside the Chapel with signs supporting the war. Tom Paolini ‘03 said he was there “to protest the protest.” Maurice Michaane ‘03, a pro-war counter-demonstrator, said “We can’t wait for another September 11 to happen — we have to neutralize the threat posed by an evil madman.” Organizer Jenny Taransky ‘03 expressed hope for future forums bringing pro-war and anti-war students together for direct dialogue.

The March 7, 2003 Spectator’s coverage of the walkout also appeared alongside a national wire item reporting that at least 26 Stanford faculty had canceled classes for the same “Books Not Bombs” strike, underscoring that Hamilton’s mobilization was part of a coordinated national collegiate response.

Post-Invasion Response, Spring 2003

The Spectator continued to report on the Iraq War after the March 20, 2003 invasion. A peace week in February 2003, organized by PJAG and “campus organizations,” included an anti-war/pro-peace poetry reading, lectures on the effects of war, and a student band performing to express “peace feelings.” The Spectator’s issue of February 28, 2003 carried extensive coverage of war-readiness news alongside the local panel coverage, reflecting how the Spectator served as both a local activist outlet and a conduit for national wire reporting on the run-up to war.

Washington March, September 2005

The most fully documented single act of Hamilton anti-war protest is the Washington, D.C. march of September 24, 2005. A “score” of Hamilton students — organized by Jessica Mariglio ‘07 as one of the main Hamilton organizers — traveled overnight by bus, arriving to join what the Washington Post estimated at 150,000 participants. Students from Hamilton’s Washington Program joined the contingent on the National Mall, and the group marched past the White House behind a banner reading “Hamilton College for Peace.”

Maurice Isserman contributed a first-person account to the September 30, 2005 Spectator under the title “Members of Hamilton community attend march in DC to protest war in Iraq.” Writing as Professor of History, Isserman contextualized the event as “the second time in less than three years that Hamilton students and faculty have mobilized to demonstrate against the war in Iraq,” the first being the February 2003 New York City march. Three student writers also published accounts in the same Spectator issue: Mariglio wrote about why she felt a moral obligation to protest and the importance of her generation’s visibility as a dissenting force; Heather Comforto ‘07 described her first protest experience and the emotional power of 100,000 people chanting “Shame!” outside the White House; and Adrienne Cook ‘06 noted she had attended the 2003 NYC march as a freshman and was now, “on the eve of the war,” returning to protest.

The September 16, 2005 Spectator had already published a preview op-ed by Mariglio mobilizing Hamilton students to attend, citing the war’s cost as $204.6 billion — equivalent, she argued, to 9.4 million four-year public university scholarships. The same issue carried coverage of Andrew Bacevich’s Levitt Center lecture on “The New American Militarism,” which included his critique of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

“Die-In” and Sustained Campus Dissent, 2005

On November 2, 2005 — the same day Students Against Violence (SAV) had proposed a class-skip protest — students organized a “die-in” on Martin’s Way. The event, organized by Jess Mariglio ‘07 in response to the SAV proposal, ran from 3:45 to 5:00 p.m. and did not disrupt classes or traffic. The occasion was tied to the U.S. death toll in Iraq surpassing 2,000, a threshold widely covered in the Spectator that fall: “With no clear end in sight for the war in Iraq,” wrote one Spectator contributor, the milestone prompted reflection across the student body.

The October 2005 Spectator ran extended analysis of the Iraq War from a military strategy perspective, with one op-ed arguing that “anti-war marches” had not translated into “organized opposition” and describing the mystique of the military as “defunct.” This was a dissenting voice within the anti-war consensus, questioning not the war’s wrongness but protest’s effectiveness. The Spectator thus hosted a range of anti-war positions — moral, political, strategic — alongside minority pro-war voices.

Great Names Speaker: Edward Walker, January 2006

In January 2006, Hamilton alumnus Edward Walker ‘62 — former U.S. ambassador to the UAE, Egypt, and Israel, and president of the Middle East Institute — delivered a campus lecture on “The Changing Strategic Picture of the Middle East.” Walker argued the United States needed to examine why mistakes in Iraq were made in order to improve the war effort, rather than simply debating the wisdom of the original decision to invade. This represented a pro-war-effort voice on the Great Names platform, distinct from the anti-war student organizing documented in other Spectator issues.

Syracuse March, Fall 2007

By fall 2007, Hamilton’s anti-war organizing had shifted from PJAG to Students Against Violence, led prominently by Corinne Bancroft ‘10. On Saturday, September 29, 2007, two jitneys of Hamilton students and professors traveled to Syracuse for a “rally and march for peace” that drew 2,500 to 3,000 participants, led by Iraq War veterans. The Syracuse Post-Standard’s John Burdick, of the Syracuse Peace Council, said it was “one of the largest mobilizations since the Vietnam War” in the region. Hamilton sent over 20 participants, including five professors, marching under the banner of “Bringing the Troops Home Now.” The rally ran from the Everson Museum to Walnut Park on the Syracuse University campus.

The Spectator’s September 28, 2007 advance story noted that the college was providing a jitney for the event, and that “Students Against Violence” had organized it. The rally’s demands included U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, full health benefits for returning veterans, money for jobs and education, and reparations to the Iraqi people.

The October 5, 2007 Spectator reported the outcome: 29 students and professors had marched with 2,500-plus war protesters. A follow-up rally in New York City was planned for October 27.

Broadway March, New York City, October 2007

On October 27, 2007, Hamilton students marched through driving rain down Broadway in New York City as part of a nationwide “Day of Action” organized by United for Peace and Justice. Over 45,000 protesters participated in New York City, with thousands more in 11 major U.S. cities. Andrew Pape ‘10 led call-and-response chants at the head of the Hamilton contingent using a megaphone; the Spectator ran a photograph captioned “Students march down Broadway to protest the war in Iraq.” The November 2, 2007 article reported that Hamilton had “led student marchers from the Vietnam and Iraq wars” within the broader crowd, including veterans, unionists, and representatives from “organizations dedicated to peace.” Gail Corneau ‘10 said she was “overwhelmed” by the number of people.

Pro-War Voices and the Limits of Consensus

The Iraq War debate at Hamilton was not entirely one-sided. The March 2003 walkout counter-protesters, the Rachel Manwill ‘05 op-ed in October 2002 (arguing from a military family’s perspective that Iraq posed a real threat and that U.S. military action was justified), and the pro-military rally covered by the Spectator in April 2003 (“Thousands Back Iraq War Near Ground Zero”) all indicate a campus minority that supported the war. The Spectator published these voices without editorial suppression. The October 21, 2005 op-ed questioning the strategic value of anti-war marches (“the Iraq War has bolstered questions” about strategy, arguing protest was counterproductive) represents a more sophisticated internal challenge to protest culture on the Hill.

Comparison to Earlier Campus Activism Traditions

The Iraq War protests were self-consciously situated within Hamilton’s longer anti-war tradition. Adrienne Cook ‘06 wrote in the September 2005 Spectator that her first march in February 2003 began “as a freshman here at Hamilton.” Heather Comforto ‘07 explicitly invoked her mother’s generation at anti-war rallies during the Vietnam War, writing: “So much has changed, and yet so little has changed.” The Spectator’s 2007 coverage drew a direct parallel to student activism from “the Vietnam and Iraq wars.”

The pattern of Hamilton anti-Iraq War organizing parallels but is smaller in scale than the Gulf War response (1990–91), when the student organization HOPE (Hamilton Organization for Peace on Earth) sent 30 students by overnight bus to a Washington rally. It also contrasts with the Vietnam era, when the 1969 Moratorium and 1970 Spring Strike produced college-wide shutdowns and lasting institutional changes. The Iraq War generated persistent but not rupturing dissent — a difference explained by the absence of a draft and the ideological complexity of a post-9/11 campus climate.

2009: Reflection and Legacy

By 2009, Spectator coverage of Iraq had shifted from protest mobilization to reflection. A fall 2009 issue documented a veteran speaking on campus about his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war’s presence in campus discourse diminished as Obama’s election and troop drawdown announcements shifted national attention.

Open Questions

• PJAG (Peace and Justice Action Group) is consistently referenced as the organizing body 2002–2005; Students Against Violence appears as its successor by 2007. The relationship between these two organizations — whether one evolved into the other, or whether they coexisted — is unclear from the Spectator record.
• Was “Hamilton College for Peace” a formal organization or solely a banner/slogan used by whichever student group organized a given march? The entity file HOPE suggests a precedent for named peace organizations at Hamilton; whether PJAG formally adopted the “Hamilton College for Peace” name is not documented.
• Did the faculty pass any formal resolutions about the Iraq War? The 2003 Government Department panel and Isserman’s op-ed participation suggest faculty engagement, but no formal faculty resolution is documented in the Spectator through this period.
• Did Flossie Mitchell’s participation in the March 2003 walkout generate any formal administrative response or controversy? Given that Mitchell’s position was eliminated in 2004, the question of whether her political activities contributed to that outcome is historically interesting but undocumented.
• The October 2002 Spectator mentions Hamilton students holding a banner “designed by Professor of Art Juan Ormaza” at the Washington D.C. peace rally. Ormaza’s involvement warrants further attention as a second faculty participant alongside Isserman.
• How did Hamilton’s anti-war activity compare in scale to peer liberal arts colleges? The Spectator reference to the Syracuse Post-Standard calling the 2007 Syracuse march “one of the largest mobilizations since the Vietnam War” suggests regional scale, but direct comparisons to Vassar, Williams, Amherst, or other NESCAC schools are not in the Spectator record.

Sources

Related Topics

• Student Activism and Social Movements
• Vietnam Moratorium 1969
• 1970 Spring Strike
• Gulf War Response 1991
• September 11 Campus Response
• College Administration and Presidential Leadership

Related Entities

• Flossie Mitchell
• Joan Hinde Stewart
• HOPE (Hamilton Organization for Peace on Earth)