By Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27
Editor-in-Chief
On March 11, 2026, Mount Holyoke College President Danielle Holley sent out an email to the Mount Holyoke student body announcing a tuition increase, which was “based on inflation as well as skyrocketing costs for health care, operations and utilities.” This change came following at least two other successive tuition raises — the College’s annual tuition in 2022-2023 was $58,280, over $10,000 less than 2026-2027’s $71,178 — and instantly provoked student backlash across campus.
While most criticism of the raise focused on the price increase itself, some students took to social media to direct their frustration at Asian and international students. Several anti-Asian and xenophobic comments were posted on Fizz, an anonymous social media platform for college students. Some posts read, “can the Asian internationals please let us know why they came all the way to America for an education?” and “you [international students] should’ve went to a more affordable institution … or better yet... maybe one in your home country.”
Dean Marcella Runell responded to the comments in her March 13 Dean’s Corner, stating, “The anti-Asian and xenophobic sentiments appearing on anonymous platforms like Fizz in response to the tuition letter are causing significant harm. I am hearing directly from your peers that they feel targeted and unwelcome in the very community that is meant to have their back.”
“This most recent behavior is not who we want to be. It stands in direct opposition to the care we owe one another and is fundamentally at odds with the Mount Holyoke Honor Code and our commitment to an inclusive environment,” Runell wrote.
Fizz: An ongoing issue
However, the comments posted to Fizz following the tuition raise were not the first of their kind that Asian American and international Mount Holyoke students have experienced in the 2025-26 school year.
Just a few days prior, an anonymous account on Fizz had posted, “Just saw 3 Asian international students eat [at] blanch, get up, and leave their food/plates once they were finished. You know who you are...”
According to several witnesses present at the scene, the students targeted by the post had only left the table to get ice cream. Many Asian American and Asian international students were hurt by the post and the sentiments it expressed.
Liz Li ’28 and JJ Guo ’29 wrote about the post to the President’s Office in a March 12 email, saying, “Regardless of the underlying circumstances, the deliberate and unnecessary identification of ‘Asian international students’ in this public accusation is harmful, discriminatory, and reflects a pattern of targeting individuals based on their ethnicity and perceived national origin.”
“The phrase ‘You know who you are’ further lends a threatening and intimidatory tone to the post,” Li and Guo stated.
According to an international first-year student, who has asked to be referred to as Alex for this article, the President’s Office didn’t respond to the email for almost a month. “It took approximately three weeks for the administration to issue a response, and when it came, it felt delayed, generic, and disconnected from the urgency of the situation,” Alex wrote in an email to Mount Holyoke News.
Several hateful posts also circulated on Fizz during the fall semester, after a paper outside of Ham and MacGregor halls was discovered with the words “ching... and so” written on it.
One anonymous post made shortly after the discovery stated, “What am I missing here? The word ‘ching’ is not racist.” Another read, “hot take some of y’all are begging to be discriminated against like the sign thing.”
Prejudice on campus
For many Asian American and Asian international students, these posts are the direct result of a hostile campus environment. Mount Holyoke News spoke with several to gather their perspectives on the situation.
Angela Kim ’28 stated, “I personally feel that these online incidents are reflective of the campus climate as a whole. The anonymity of Fizz and distance from the institution allow people to get away with hateful sentiments.”
“Since the institution has made it clear that they can’t get involved in the moderation process, the true solution is to fix campus climate and educate students. This means that not only will students not publicly express these sentiments, but also feel them in the first place,” Kim said.
Liz Li ’28 shared a similar sentiment during an interview when discussing some of the Fizz posts from fall 2025: “I think that's the first time I realized … how widely the anti-Asian [hate] is on campus.”
Alex had parallel experiences outside of social media. “I have experienced clear microaggressions in academic settings. In my first-year seminar, when my fellow international students and I contributed to discussions, the professor would repeatedly say he needed to ‘translate’ our sentences for domestic students, even though we were speaking clear and simple English,” they wrote.
“More broadly, my experience does not align with the College’s portrayal of a ‘close-knit’ and supportive campus environment,” Alex stated.
Microaggressions are reportedly not an uncommon experience on Mount Holyoke’s campus for those of marginalized identities. In an email to Mount Holyoke News, Susan Jiang ’28 stated, “Something else that really left an indelible mark on me is that last semester we did a microaggression survey on campus, and found out that microaggression, heartbreakingly, exists in the living experience of many around us.”
Some students found the College’s response to the ongoing issue of anti-Asian hate and xenophobia on campus and online to be at odds with its commitment to diversity and inclusion.
“The College administration has had mixed responses to these incidents, but overall, I do not feel sufficiently supported by the College,” Kim stated. “Oftentimes … they don’t provide systemic or upstream solutions, so similar incidents can continue to occur.”
“I do not believe the College’s response has been adequate or proportionate to the seriousness of these incidents,” Alex wrote. “When harmful behavior is not addressed promptly and clearly, it sends the message that anti-Asian and anti-international student hate is, in practice, tolerated on this campus.”
“It’s taken forever to send out a statement, to send out an announcement, and we have to keep asking them to do that,” Li said. “They’re just saying, like, ‘International students or Asian students are important to us’ and … there’s a resource, like counseling … but those things … they are helpful, but they are not at the institutional level.”
Mount Holyoke News reached out to Christian Feuerstein, the College’s director of public affairs and media relations, and received a statement from the College: “Mount Holyoke College is committed to ensuring that every student is supported and respected. This emphatically includes Asian American, Asian international and all international students. We affirm that everyone on our campus deserves to be safe, to feel at home and to know that they belong.”
The statement continued, “We are also currently in an active dialogue about campus culture on anonymous apps like Fizz. Students have petitioned to have our Honor Code, which is the backbone of our community, explicitly applied to how we treat one another in digital spaces. The administration is working with student groups to find ways to maintain the safety of our community in these anonymous environments. When we are made aware of something potentially harmful or threatening we have asked Fizz to remove the post. However, they are an independent entity which functions as a for-profit business, and we are typically not successful as they are not obligated to cooperate with us.”
It’s unclear which students and student groups the College is in dialogue with, and what those discussions look like.
A lack of clarity surrounding students' rights — especially those of international students — and what students can do if they’ve experienced prejudice or discrimination on campus was also a common subject during interviews.
Li stated that an overhaul of the anti-discrimination training new students receive would be helpful: “[Students] don't really know [their rights] until I tell them … but they also have lots of concerns,” Li said. “Like, for example, if they feel microaggression from their professor who they're taking class with, and if they report it, what's going to happen? Will that impact their grade or something?”
Training should also include clearer guidance about “what kind of thing will be regarded as microaggression,” Li said. “And if that happened, what do you do?”
Activists called into disciplinary meetings
Li, Alex, and Kim all stated that several students have been called into disciplinary meetings by Residential life for actions they undertook to raise awareness about issues Asian American and Asian international students have been experiencing at the College.
“I know three students who have been called in for disciplinary meetings. But just for really small things, like [writing in] chalk, put a poster on a table, or just try to post something, like a meme, on a padlet,” Li explained.
“This hasn’t happened to me, but it has happened to multiple students that I know,” Kim shared. “These meetings are systematically broken.”
Alex spoke about one specific incident: “A friend of mine was called into a disciplinary meeting after posting a ‘run away’ meme that had not even been approved on the Experience MHC padlet. Despite this, she received a formal notice in 24 hours stating that her behavior had ‘seriously disrupted other students’ educational experience,’ which is hard to understand given that the content was never seen by others.”
The Experience MHC padlet was a platform where current Mount Holyoke students were encouraged by the College to “share a kind word, message of welcome or any advice that they think would be beneficial” for admitted students. There was no clear prohibition against sharing memes or anecdotes critical of the College, but at least one student was called into a disciplinary meeting for submitting a picture that could have been perceived as negative.
The meeting took place in a Reslife office from roughly 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., during which around a dozen Mount Holyoke students sat outside in the hallway in support of the student who had been called in. A reporter from Mount Holyoke News was also present in the hall for the duration.
Several students who attended expressed frustration about the process in which disciplinary meetings were called. Students who are called into disciplinary meetings by Reslife are not informed why they have been summoned until the meeting itself. Many reported feeling confused and anxious.
“Beginning at the initial letter that is sent out, there is a lack of clarity of what the meeting entails, which does not allow the student to adequately prepare. The letter also doesn’t specify that the student is allowed to bring a support person into the meeting,” Kim stated.
Students interviewed by Mount Holyoke News also expressed feeling a sense of confusion during such disciplinary meetings.
“During the meeting, a Community Standards staff member, Nashalie, was unable to provide a clear or consistent explanation of the relevant student handbook policies, which raised concerns about how these guidelines are interpreted and enforced. The contrast is striking: the administration demonstrated the ability to act within 24 hours when disciplining a student, yet did not demonstrate the same urgency in responding to incidents of discrimination," Alex said.
“[Reslife] should stop scaring their students that way because the school claims that those kinds of meetings are offering support … but that’s not real,” Li stated. “The way they call students to there, and how they talk to students, will definitely not make students feel supported.”
According to the College’s website and the statement from the College, the process is supposed to be restorative. “Disciplinary meetings are meant to be educational in nature and are designed to maintain communal boundaries,” the College wrote. “If anyone has any feedback on student conduct at Mount Holyoke it can be shared at dean-students@mtholyoke.edu.”
Despite this, many Asian American and Asian international students present in the hall during the meeting discussed feeling targeted and intimidated.
“I don’t feel safe because I just can see my friends, my fellow students are … called in for disciplinary meetings and since we’re international students, we hold the visas, and the visas depend on the school, and our financial aid also depends on the school,” Li explained during the interview. “So sometimes I will hear my fellow students try to remind me, [to] be careful because you need the school to keep your visa.”
“What happens in the meeting also causes a lot of damage,” Kim stated.
Students seek support, solidarity
Anti-Asian and xenophobic comments made by fellow students, alongside actions undertaken — or not undertaken — by the College have profoundly impacted all of the students who spoke to Mount Holyoke News. Facing a lack of support from the College, many have turned to one another for community.
“These experiences have had a tangible impact on my mental health. I have felt persistent stress, frustration, and emotional exhaustion. I have also seen peers experience significant distress, including emotional crises. Some have even had to take medical leave as a result. These are not isolated or abstract impacts — they are real and ongoing for both myself and other students,” Alex wrote.
“What I’m feeling right now is, I don’t have my life,” Li stated. “I don’t have time to talk to my family, because they ask, ‘Oh, how’s school going? And what fun things are you doing?’ And I cannot tell them, ‘Oh, I’ve been discriminated against.’”
“A campus cannot claim to be inclusive while failing to respond meaningfully and promptly to targeted hate,” Alex stated. “Students deserve more [from administration] than statements that are delayed, superficial, or disconnected from reality … we deserve to feel protected, heard, and valued.”
“We have the responsibility — and everyone has that — to stop [hate], and to do something, ” Li explained. “Right now, for example, Trump … wants to create hate … if we are isolated, or if we are even [fighting] against each other … they will be happy.”
“Over the past few months, the things my peers have done to address the racist incidents happening on our campus have given me lots of encouragement,” Jiang wrote to Mount Holyoke News. “It has been a great fortune for me to meet these wonderful, brave people.”
Kim also stressed the importance of community and friendships in advocacy: “The mental toll of seeing the harm is also taxing, but despite that, I still wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else. I am so grateful for my support systems and community.”
“Having those relationships is essential to organizing and not getting burnt out,” Kim stated.
“It’s really important for us to build solidarity inside Mount Holyoke,” Li concluded. “We should work together.”
Abigail McKeon ’26 and Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.
