WC Voices

08/07/2026

I'm going to point inquries related to the antisemitism posts to the admin that is speaking to that, Jack Gilden - I've tried making this clear in past posts and probably was not clear enough. This is not the new focus of WC Voices to get into what some percieve as politics. Jack's words are his own, he does not speak for WC Voices group of admin, (there are only 4 of us left after so many years and so many discussions). Others of us agree that the school should not be promoting politics when its financial state is precarious, or ever. In promoting any politician, the school takes the voice of that person. If I was a criminal, and the school said "We're so proud of our alumnus, Skip Middleton, for his success in business!" and I was under investigation by the SEC, or affiliated with a group that was nefarious in some way, it cannot help but spill back on the school

That said, the school is on a financial cliff at the moment, which was our concern when we started this group. We worried our donations were going to buy out contracts for the revolving presidents, we worried that funds were being misallocated, too much borrowing was going on and decisions were being made to negatively affect enrollment. This issue alone, contratulating a polarizing figure, negatively affects enrollment, unrestricted gifts, and more. I would like to believe the school is not antisemitic, that it educates students to look at both sides of all issues, that it is not racist, doesn't promote the K*K, and it believes its students can read cursive. Perceptions can dangerously create stereotypes.

The bigger concern is the college doesn't become University of Maryland, or a senior center, or UPenn, or lose its role and value as a jewel of the Eastern Shore. I've said this before, whither goes Washington College, goes Chestertown, and Kent County. The school had very very limited funds to operate the deficit it has been continuously navigating. Its not because the school is too liberal, or too racist, or too anything, except mismanaged by a board of 36 people who would rather be "Board Members" than agents of change. Financial change. The alumni, from all places on the financial, political, and persuasion spectrum, can and should be tapped to assist The Fix. Without promoting personal agendas. Boosters are awesome, when they boost. They suck when they want their personal MAGA, or WOKE, or any agenda other than increasing enrollment, operating transparently, staying out of politics and the like.

I say this to our own admins of this page, and I am speaking directly to a complacent board, and what I assume is a struggling mgmt team. I am very close to dealing with more important things in my personal life right now and canceling this page and its drift. For now, I'll leave it up, but the next posts will only be about the less than $10M I see to get this 250 year old institution through the next 1 year. Jack will not post any more links to the petition, if you havent felt the need to sign it yet, you won't. This young lady will be not be a new topic unless she steps in it related to the college directly moving forward. For those of you wanting to support this topic, you know how to reach Jack Jack Gilden - I will say Jack has been a close personal friend of mine for over 40 years, and if it was possible, for 40 more years. I feel similarly with many of the 700 people that make up or follow this page.

Washington College, and the sanctity of its marriage with Chestertown, and the Eastern Shore will be the continued focus moving forward. I will be taking a couple weeks off for my own issues, and I would like to say there will be no dustups or surprises here in the interim. Enjoy whats left of your summer folks, and lets do a little friendly healing moving forward. I've never advocated editing this page, and its comments, but I will if I have to moving forward.

- Skip

08/06/2026

Do you know who Hasan Piker is? He has been referred to as the far-left Nick Fuentes. He has called Jews "termites" and "in**ed," and minimizes the Holocaust. He blames the United States for 9-11. Here he is talking and laughing with the pride of Washington College, Melat Kiros. Please sign our growing petition (link in comments) against our college supporting this kind of hate against America and the Jewish people.

Melat Kiros is running for Congress to fight for affordable housing...

08/04/2026

Washington College may be "proud" of her but Melat Kiros seems shockingly unprepared and inept in answering these Firing Line questions. For one thing, she seemed to think Israel is surrounded by democracies. Truly scary how ill-equipped she is.

08/03/2026

What’s up, WC peeps? I’ve had some questions this past week about this page, politics, and who exactly WC Voices is. WC Voices, from an administrative standpoint, was, and is, a group of alumni with expertise in areas in which the school was struggling in 2017: PR execs, lobbyists, businesspeople, journalists, and more. Politics never entered the equation because the school was not a place for politics.

This cast of characters offered their time to help the school navigate fundraising, transparency, branding, and public perception in order to attract donations, increase enrollment, navigate generational idiosyncrasies, and more. These people came from the military, the world of business, the world of nonprofit fundraising, and more. Without classifying or caring, they came from conservative backgrounds, LGBT backgrounds, retired backgrounds, and athletic backgrounds. There was no MAGA movement then, there was no DSA movement, and there was no interest in helping the school politically because, surprise, there’s no crying in baseball, and there’s no politics in caring about the absolute survival of Washington College and the Chestertown community.

Any administrator of this group can open a thread based on feedback from the WC community or on WC’s actions. This group was created because the then-current administration and board seemed to operate in a void, a bubble, and were, in their minds, beyond reproach. It’s unfortunate that here we are, almost 10 years later, staring at SSDD* disease. The school, administration, and board continue to shoot themselves in the foot and hurt their efforts to attract donations, raise enrollment, and more by continuing to operate in a void, as if they haven’t a care in the world. Had the college lauded one to three former students by saying, “Great job winning a primary,” and noted in a disclaimer that their platforms did not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the school, perhaps that would have been enough. That is the role most colleges currently take, with formal policies NOT to get involved in the politics of the moment, and life goes on. As you all can see, this was not the case, and it inflamed not only Jewish alumni but alumni from all walks of life, much as if Ilhan Omar or Donald Trump had been heralded.

This is important for all institutions, but it is especially so for Washington College for very specific reasons. I won’t talk about the responsibility of the Administration or the Bloated Board; it is the responsibility of the Institution as a whole not to jeopardize enrollment, endowments, donations, or institutional monies when the school continues to tap the very fragile endowment while losing millions every year, with no Hodson Trust anymore and a nervous group of existing students. Washington College’s bond rating is BBB-. If you don’t know what that means, it is like a personal credit rating of about 630. If it drops one more category, it enters the junk-bond range, like giving a secured Sears credit card to a college kid who overspent and then didn’t pay their debt.

The latest financials are being analyzed as we write this. That means reviewing the 2025 financials filed earlier this year, and trust me, things are not getting better. The school is operating at a significant deficit, enrollment is not where it needs to be—this cascade began in 2017, around the time of the censorship debacle—and the bond rating dropped in 2021. We purposefully stayed dormant, allowing the current administration to navigate with a free hand, but stupid s**t like this continues to happen while the unrestricted part of the endowment continues to be tapped.

We would all love to see Larry Hogan, Mike Rowe as well, as a very active board member, or more; a MUCH SMALLER board; board accountability; and NO POLITICS IN EDUCATION, just like there’s no crying in baseball. This removes labels from the college, quiets the naysayers proclaiming too much Liberal in Liberal Arts, and may allow Bryan to do his damn job. I personally offered Bryan insight into and resources from WC Voices and this part of the alumni network, as well as my own help, when he began. He chose not to engage, and he was well within his rights to choose that path. I will say that the outlook for the college, based on the most recent filings, remains grim, and there is indeed still a very real death clock ticking that could signal either a forced merger or the closure of the school within a small number of years. Both bode poorly for the fate of Chestertown and Kent County as well, which, as you know, are equally important to me and likely to many of you as well.

Jack Gilden has been the WC Voices alumnus speaking up about this political leaning of the college, while I am usually the voice addressing the business of the school. Most of you know that I am not only a 1987 alumnus but also grew up in Kent County, MD, and love most of what is, and has been, the Upper Eastern Shore.

Skip Middleton

* Same S**t, Different Day for those of you curious.

08/01/2026

This well-done video presents a clear picture of how Melat Kiros's primary election victory has affected Jewish Coloradans. They are fearful for their lives and safety because of Kiros. Should any community in the United States feel targeted like that by its elected leaders? It's a question worth asking. Watch the video.

Democratic socialist Melat Kiros' primary victory in Colorado has prompted a political counter from members of the state's Jewish community, who say they feel afraid and unheard as debates over antisemitism and party politics intensify.

07/31/2026

Yesterday we posted a link to a petition about anti-Americanism and antisemitism at Washington College. Even if you are not Jewish you should read it and sign it, anyway. Had you been around for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, you may have lived far from Alabama but still recognized the gross injustice. Such is the case here, at Washington College, at this time. This is the key moment to stand up and be heard, and to take a moral stand against the hate-filled ideologies that are tearing our country apart. Here is the text (there is a link in the comments where you may go and sign the petition):

Dear members of the Washington College Board of Visitors and Governors:
It has now been several weeks since Washington College posted on its social media and in its Magazine an article expressing its “pride” in Melat Kiros '18, a politician from Colorado who recently unseated a long-standing incumbent to win her party’s nomination for Congress.
The school’s essay about Ms. Kiros was uncritical. Many in Washington College’s community felt that it was highly inappropriate for the school to promote her given that there are many allegations of extremism against Ms. Kiros, including assertions that she is anti-American and antisemitic.
These are reasonable contentions.
Ms. Kiros has blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks against it on September 11, 2001 that claimed almost 3,000 innocent American lives. Her own Democratic political colleagues have called her “antisemitic,” and Colorado’s Democratic party gubernatorial nominee, Phil Weiser, said that he would confront her about her antisemitism.
The charges of antisemitism against Ms. Kiros are not frivolous. They were leveled after she refused to characterize a fire-bomb attack on Jewish Coloradans by a terrorist as antisemitic.
The decision by the leadership of Washington College to promote Ms. Kiros and express pride in her accomplishment, despite her well-known and public prejudices, comes at a highly dangerous moment. We live in an era when the world’s only Jewish nation is under constant military and rhetorical attack. Jewish students in the United States have recently been chased and chastised, beaten and barred from their own campuses. The administrators of their schools have been caught, in unguarded moments, berating their Jewish students.
At a Congressional hearing, university presidents admitted under oath that calling for the genocide of the Jews did not go against their community standards. Like the Coloradans Ms. Kiros dismissed, Jews all over the world have recently been violently attacked and killed in beatings, shootings and bombings.
Embracing Ms. Kiros is not surprising at Washington College, a school with its own entrenched culture that has not always been welcoming to Jewish students over the years. Jewish enrollment briefly spiked during the short tenure of the school’s only known Jewish president, Mitchel Reiss (2010-2014), but as soon as President Reiss departed Jewish enrollment plummeted and it remains low to this day.
Some would like to paint the article about Ms. Kiros as a free speech issue. Yet campus publications, whether printed or online, are utilized as marketing venues not news sites. That is evidenced by the fact that they are run by the vice-president of marketing. Also, if the piece had genuine news value why did it not tell Ms. Kiros’s full story instead of whitewashing it to excise the highly problematic aspects of her campaign and tactics?
Our purpose in drafting and sending this note is for the undersigned to inform you that we do not believe that promoting the interests of extremist politicians with antisemitic, socialist, and anti-American views comports with the long-standing ideals and aspirations of the school that is known as “the first chartered college in the new nation.”
Washington College has been committed from the start to George Washington’s democratic values and also to the enlightened thinking enhanced by an education in the liberal arts.
In keeping with that, we ask Washington College to retract its statement and offer a public apology to its alumni, students and other stakeholders. The Board should make personnel changes and discharge those who wrote, approved, and/or published this article. Further, the board should institute a study of Washington College’s culture to determine whether it is welcoming to Jews, or if it has fostered antisemitism.
We believe the school needs to acknowledge its unresolved problem with antisemitism and correct it immediately.
In the sober light of reflection Washington College needs to confront the fact that it is not in fact welcoming to all qualified students even though its current inability to attract enough new qualified students is an existential threat.
How is it possible that those two situations could simultaneously exist?
That’s the question that needs to be answered.

07/30/2026

In light of the Melat Kiros situation, this is a petition to end antisemitism at Washington College. Please read it and if you are in agreement with it add your signature.

07/19/2026

The angry responses by some alumni to our posts about Washington College's Facebook post featuring alum-politician Melat Kiros explain a lot about why the school's article is so damaging to itself, but also to American culture.

Those who opposed our two posts here on WC Voices did so for a variety of reasons. Usually, they tried to turn the debate from Kiros's failure to label a fatal attack on firebombed Jews into angry commentaries about Israel.

The commenters often argued that criticism of Israel is not antisemitic.

That's an interesting debate but it has nothing to do with Ms. Kiros's behavior, or the school's attempt to uncritically promote her, while failing to mention her highly provocative behavior.

In other words, members of our Washington College community, in their comments, ignored that their own countrymen were lit on fire by someone with a racist agenda so that they might make an arcane point.

That's the evil. It's called normalization.

There is a responsibility in publishing. To pretend that demagoguery doesn't exist where it is plainly in sight, is wrong. To fail to mention a race-based attack and the candidate's response to it, even though it was much discussed in Colorado, can normalize the most aberrant behaviors and political responses.

The people here who supported Melat and defended the school's decision to promote her without comment about her many controversies were willing to cede the main point as an irrelevancy.

That's what normalization looks like.

The commenters own words demonstrate why running that article was such a significant mistake. Violence, hate, politics, excuses, and higher education is a combustible cocktail all its own.

07/17/2026

One week later and the post featuring Melat Kiros is still on the Washington College page. It is obvious now that the day-to-day leadership of the school is untroubled by their unfortunate decision to feature this antisemitic extremist in an article that covered up her anti-Jewish and anti-American positions and behaviors.

Doubling down by keeping the post up was not a good idea.

Since I first posted about this many alumni have reached out to me behind the scenes to express their outrage. Most told me they were washing their hands of Washington College and would no longer financially support the school. Others were writing letters or emails.

These alumni were both Jewish and gentile. Some were strong Israel supporters and some were not. All of them had previously been passionate Washington College people.

A group of Jewish alumni reached out to me. So did one of the most famous fiction writers in the United States. Both were unhappy with the school's actions.

One man with whom I spoke had family connections to Chestertown and Washington College that went all the way back to the William Smith era. Another alum came from the most storied family in Washington College history. They were united in spirit believing that the school had committed a grievous wrong, not only in the post but in the failure to follow it up with any decent explanation.

It is hard to believe Washington College is unaware of the affect its behavior is having on its Jewish alumni and potential Jewish students. In praising a young woman who could not call the fatal firebombing of elderly Jews antisemitic, it joined in the swelling chorus of anti-Jewish rhetoric that is actively leading to so much hate-based violence in the United States and all over the world.

How does Washington College plan to mend fences with the Jewish community after this appalling episode? How can it now claim to fairly assess Jewish students for admission, or judge their work on campus fairly? Most glaringly, how can they credibly claim Jewish students will be safe on their campus?

Perhaps that's a question for the federal government to sort out.

There are a lot of questions left open by the decision to publish that article and, worse, to leave it there for a week now without any word of explanation from leadership.

For all of us in the Washington College community we must wonder not only why they have embraced the very worst thoughts of our generation, but also why they have chosen to do so much harm to OUR college.

And if they think the problem will go away by ignoring it, they may not be right about that either.

07/09/2026

Washington College posted a troubling piece on its page yesterday, apparently very proud that its former student, Melat Kiros, won a stunning upset over Representative Diana DeGette, a long time Colorado politician.

That would seem to make sense until you know something about her.

Among her many stunning remarks, Melat Kiros blamed the United States for 9-11. Colorado's Gubernatorial candidate, also a Democrat , said he was troubled by her antisemitism and planned to 'confront' her about it.

Kiros refused to condemn as antisemitic a man who set elderly Colorado Jews on fire. She also attacks mainstream Democrats, accusing them of "felating Israel" and saying that they "suck s**t."

Posting this was not an errant mistake. A spokesman for the school assured me they had done their research on Kiros before writing and posting the article.

As we all know, Washington College is a troubled institution with many failures still to overcome to stay viable. Aligning itself with extremists and their hate-filled agendas, bragging about the affiliation with no mention of the extremist views and statements, is extraordinarily troubling.

Unspoken in the joy is the fact that Washington College educated this young woman who has entered public life with hatred as a feature much like an old school Dixiecrat.

We must wonder where our school has gone in the years since most of us have graduated. It is a place of learning that borrows its name from a man who though flawed is famous in world history for his political restraint.

The school once hung its hat on Western values. It taught with elan what few other schools cared about: Humanities, philosophy, history, ethics.

There was great hope that the appointment of Bryan Matthews would be the dawn of a new day in which the self-inflicted wounds that were killing the school would end.

And now this.

Washington College has birthed and proudly claims as one of its own an extremist who is getting ahead in the world by making it a more dangerous place for others.

Washington College's pride in her makes you wonder exactly what they were teaching her all along.

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/us/politics/melat-kiros-degette-colorado-democratic-primary.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/progressive-house-candidate-posts-ad-213848617.html

https://completecolorado.com/2026/06/30/antisemitism-finds-bipartisan-foothold-in-colorado-politics/

Jack Gilden, '87

Kiros suggests "calls for the elimination of the Israeli state" should not be considered antisemitism.