I teach Communications at the University of Washington. Here’s why UW President Ana Mari Cauce’s blog post about Israel gets a failing grade.

The world is shocked and horrified by the gut-wrenching images coming from the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. 

In moments like this, leaders of major institutions can lift up and reassert the shared values of the communities they represent. Failure to meet the moment can alienate leadership from their stakeholders, destroy brand loyalty and signal a lack of competence. 

On October 9, the University of Washington published an anodyne post on President Ana Mari Cauce’s blog commenting on the events in Israel. As a Jew, I was infuriated. As an instructor in the University of Washington’s Communication Leadership program, I was insulted by its amateurism and banality. Here are the three rules she broke to get it so utterly wrong.

Rule 1. Get the reader's attention  

The most important work of any headline is to get your reader to read the next line. Both the headline,“Civilians will pay the terrible price of the conflict in Israel and Gaza”, and paragraph one, “...Every life claimed by this conflict is a tragedy” are a bland porridge of platitudes. Only in paragraph two do we learn the terrible news that UW alum, Hayim Katsman, ‘21, was murdered by the terrorists.

If something is important and attention-grabbing, you say it first. Leading with Hayim’s story would have made this tragedy immediately real and relatable to otherwise disengaged readers. Instead, it’s buried in paragraph two. It’s the brutal murder of a member of the UW community within the world’s most gigantic story. How did she get something so easy so wrong?

Rule 2: Don’t make it about you

Hamas terrorists committed savagery and butchery against innocent women, children and babies. But no acknowledgement of these horrific, undeniable facts appear in the post. Instead we get a whole paragraph where Cauce talks about herself, her own travels, her own hopes. 

“I recall returning from my trip to Israel several years ago with some hope that peace might be possible…”

At this moment, it’s NOT ABOUT YOU.

Had she acknowledged the Jewish community’s genuine rage and despair in the face of unspeakable villainy, her later calls for civility might have gained more credence. Instead, she’s lost the reader by talking about herself and trying to establish her bona fides.

Rule 3: Be authentic

Perhaps the most important rule of all is to be authentic. Show that you care. Take a stand. Speak unambiguously.

But instead, Cauce’s closing paragraph starts:

“And at a time when we have seen increased acts of antisemitism and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab violence… I implore everyone in our community to hope and work for peace and understanding within our own community as we find ways to support the victims of the violence and work for peace,”

This was two days after the worst single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Is the murder of 1,200+ Jews worthy of its own moment of reflection? By taking the lazy “both sides” approach, she diminishes the victims’ suffering and waters it down with irrelevant details. This is the emotional equivalent of the guy who tells a bleeding woman who has just been pulled from the wreckage of a car accident that he once broke his ankle. It may be true, but now isn’t the time. 

The whole thing is tone deaf. It’s the worst sort of virtue signaling. If you want to see it done well, check out this nuanced and thoughtful post by Satya Nadella at Microsoft. Coping with the exact same fraught moment, he spoke clearly. At the UW, Cauce did not. 

I don’t speak for the University and these words are my own. But as a member of the University’s faculty that prides itself on freedom of expression, I want to offer an apology to the Jewish and Israeli communities we serve. President Cauce’s post failed to acknowledge the depths of our anguish, and the continued threat of harm on college campuses like our own. 

She might not be aware of what an insult it was for our community to read such a bland dismissal of Jewish pain and danger. But there’s still a chance for her to understand that Israelis and Jews are facing what President Biden correctly labeled ‘pure evil.’

May the memories of all those taken from us be for a blessing and may the captured be brought home safely to their families.