(The Center Square) – An education defense group said the College of William & Mary’s Students for Justice in Palestine club’s online attacks against the school’s Board of Visitors may break school code, the student group accusing the board of being “complicit in the genocide against Palestinians” and calling it a “Board of Butchers,” while also posting details of members’ lives in its attacks.
Director of Higher Education Initiatives at Defending Education Reagan Dugan told The Center Square that “William & Mary’s conduct code bars students from behavior a reasonable person would find alarming or intimidating.”
“Publishing doctored photos of named individuals dripping with blood while compiling files on their personal lives meets that standard,” Dugan said.
“The administration now has to decide whether its code applies equally to all students,” Dugan said.
Dugan additionally noted to The Center Square that Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) attack on William & Mary’s Board of Visitors “is not a one-off incident.”
“National SJP pushed a ‘Board of Butchers’ campaign in August 2025 calling for the systematic targeting of university boards,” Dugan said.
Dugan told The Center Square that “Board of Visitors members are gubernatorial appointees charged with overseeing a public institution.”
“Campaigns like this one are designed to pressure them into self-censorship or resignation,” Dugan said.
“If William & Mary lets [SJP’s actions] go, it is telling its own governing board that the university won’t stand behind them,” Dugan said.
Defending Education released a report Tuesday on SJP’s attacks against William & Mary’s Board of Visitors.
Neither William & Mary media relations nor the Board of Visitors have responded to The Center Square’s requests for comment.
On April 16, the SJP club at William & Mary posted a series of photos and paragraphs related to the Board of Visitors on Instagram with the caption: “We’re back! Learn even more about how our Board of Visitors are complicit in the genocide against Palestinians.”
The first red-tinted photo in the post reads “Meet William & Mary’s Board of Butchers” and is subsequently followed by more red-hued photos of Board of Visitors members, along with paragraphs about the members’ supposed “questionable activity.”
Board member Hillary Waldron’s offenses, according to SJP, include working as senior director of international business development for General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical System, a company that is the “6th largest weapons manufacturer” and allegedly “supplies Israel with artillery ammunition and bombs for attack jets used against Gaza,” according to SJP.
As stated on its website, General Dynamics is “a global aerospace and defense company” that is “committed to providing the U.S. military and its allies with an extensive range of overarching products that provide a cutting-edge advantage to our war fighters.”
Defending Education’s report on SJP’s attack against William & Mary’s Board of Visitors stated that in November 2025, SJP “posted a similar photo series on the Board of Visitors” as the April post.
The November post stated: “Meet the New Members of William & Mary’s Board of Butchers” and “these individuals…are linked to despicable figures and companies.”
Additionally, in the slides following this Board of Butchers post, the SJP William & Mary students “took headshots of the Board of Visitors, put black marks over their face, and included dripping blood at the top of their photos.”
“Next to each member’s photo, students compiled a list of the member’s offenses, including their employment history and information regarding their personal lives and companies,” Defending Education’s report said.
William & Mary’s Student Code of Conduct prohibits students from “causing physical harm, threatening harm to any person, or behaving in a manner that a reasonable person would find alarming or intimidating.”
William & Mary’s SJP group has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.
As Defending Education’s Dugan alluded to, the National Students for Justice in Palestine posted a manifesto in August 2025 that said: “In order for us to remove the imperial university as a roadblock to the struggle for Palestinian liberation, we must dismantle its structure – starting with these Boards of Butchers.”
The manifesto critiqued western civilization, while stating that Boards of Visitors and Trustees “represent the ruling class on our campuses and are extensions of imperial power, capitalist accumulation, and the police state.”
