Gateway Technical College rescinds award to Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism after president's pro-Palestine posts
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include the names of the 2024 honorees. The names originally listed were for 2023.
Gateway Technical College has rescinded a humanitarian award named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that had been earmarked for a small-town Wisconsin racial justice nonprofit.
The reason: pro-Palestine statements made by the nonprofit’s president on social media.
Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism was among three already-announced 2023 recipients of Gateway Technical College’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award. But before a ceremony on Monday, the technical college released a statement Jan. 11 announcing it would remove the nonprofit from its shortlist of award winners.
“While Gateway values the work done by the Burlington Coalition for the Dismantling of Racism, it was brought to the college’s attention that the selection of BCDR as a Gateway Technical College Dr. King Humanitarian raises some concerns and does not align with Gateway’s values nor reflect the spirit of this award,” Gateway said in a news release.
Members of the nonprofit learned about Gateway college's decision via phone, nonprofit member Erin Ramczyk said via email. In the first of two calls, members of the nonprofit were told one particular phrase in a Dec. 31 Facebook post by President Laura Bielefeldt's was at issue: “From River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” That phrase did not come up in the second call, Ramczyk said.
National media outlets like the Associated Press and National Public Radio say that phrase, referencing land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, is widely recognized as holding different meanings for different groups. For some, it's a call to liberate Palestinians; for others, it's an anti-Semitic call for the eradication of Israel. It's the same phrase at issue in the censure of U.S. Rep. Rashida Talib of Michigan by members of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall.
Other posts on Bielefeldt's Facebook and Instagram pages are critical of the Israel-Hamas war, which, since Oct. 7, has led to the death of more than 24,000 people. The majority of those killed are Palestinian women, children and civilians, according to the Associated Press.
Gateway spokesperson Lee Colony confirmed the college's decision to rescind the award related to statements made by Bielefeldt on social media. Colony said college leadership, not the board of trustees, made the ultimate decision.
With a headcount enrollment of about 19,000 students last year, Gateway is one of 16 technical colleges within the public Wisconsin Technical College System. It is in far eastern Wisconsin with campuses in Burlington, Kenosha and Racine, among other areas.
Gateway’s annual humanitarian award program is intended to recognize a local person or organization emblematic of Dr. Martin Luther King’s values, like equality, justice, freedom and peace, according to the college.
The Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism is based in the 11,000-person city of Burlington, just southwest of Milwaukee. The nonprofit’s mission is to “expose, disrupt, and dismantle racism and racist systems while simultaneously rebuilding the Burlington community.”
“The decision to take away an award given in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s name from an organization like BCDR that truly embodies Dr. King’s values is really unfair,” Bielefeldt said in an online statement. “This award was never about me; it was meant to recognize the incredible impact of BCDR’s racial justice work.”
The remaining recipients of Gateway's humanitarian award are Nakeyda Haymer, the Wisconsin state director of Voices of Black Mothers United and Racine's Violent Crime Reduction coordinator; and Ronald Tatum, the executive director at Kenosha Area Family and Aging Services Inc.
Cleo Krejci covers higher education, vocational training and retraining as a Report For America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at CKrejci@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. Support her work with a tax-deductible donation at bit.ly/RFADonation.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gateway Technical College rescinded humanitarian award to nonprofit
