As clubs across campus announce their support for a divestment campaign led by Clark Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Prism, one of Clark’s LGBTQ+ clubs, is not among them. 

The issue of divestment has become the center of much controversy within Prism’s executive board (e-board) and general members. 

When Clark SJP first launched its “Clark Clubs for Divestment Campaign” on March 10, many Prism members and alumni voiced their support for the campaign on Prism’s Discord server and asked whether or not Prism would be joining the campaign. Discord is an instant messaging app, used by Prism for communication.

Prism’s Sexuality Advocate, Ryan Saboia, told The Scarlet that the club’s executive board held several emergency meetings to discuss joining the divestment campaign. According to Saboia, several board members opposed divestment and in some cases threatened to resign from their positions if Prism endorsed SJP’s proposal. Saboia said that he hoped to hold a club-wide vote to decide on the issue. On March 13, however, the executive board opted to issue a neutrality statement. According to Saboia, they did so without input from other members of Prism. 

Rox Glassenberg, President of Prism, decided to leave the group’s Discord server after the decision to issue the neutrality statement was made. Glassenberg turned over moderator privileges to the Secretary, Claudia Maibor. 

“There’s been much discussion recently on our channels about the Clark Club Israel Divestment policy,” Prism representatives wrote in their March 14 neutrality statement. “Behind the scenes, the e-board has been meeting about this among ourselves, as well as with our club advisor and other Clark staff. Unfortunately, the e-board cannot come to an agreement at this time regarding the policy. We feel this topic is creating division within the organization and putting the structural integrity of the club at risk.” 

The statement urged members not to engage in discussions about the issue of divestment or the neutrality statement on Prism’s Discord. Many Prism members voiced their dissatisfaction with the Executive Board over this decision and several general members left the Discord entirely. 

“Although I don’t often go to Prism events, in light of the active genocide in Palestine, how long this violence has been going on, and Prism’s complicity with said genocide, it’s just not a group I’m comfortable being a part of, even marginally,” an anonymous member of Prism said.

Members felt that Prism’s neutral stance was irresponsible considering the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by Israel. They were also angry that the decision to remain neutral was made by the e-board without asking for the opinions of any of Prism’s general members. 

Facing widespread backlash from general members and alumni, Prism Secretary Claudia Maibor locked the Discord server, effectively cutting off members’ ability to freely discuss the issue. According to Saboia, Maibor took this action without consulting the rest of the e-board. In a separate conversation on Instagram, Maibor threatened to remove Saboia from the server if he tried to unlock it. When Saboia posted screenshots of these messages on the “announcements” channel on the Prism Discord, Maibor removed him from the server. 

Over the next week, both the President and Treasurer resigned from the Prism e-board. “I felt extremely uncomfortable with the statement released by the rest of the e-board as I had chosen to not take part in creating it as I was very much against this decision,” Ana Ruggieri, former Prism Treasurer, said in an interview with The Scarlet. “After the statement was released to the club via Discord there was major pushback from the club members, who called out the decision that was made on their behalf essentially without any input from the actual club itself.

“After this decision was made, I realized I could no longer support the e-board as it was twisting what Prism stands for…I sent an email to all of the e-board members and our club advisor, Abigail Gilbert,” Ruggieri continued. “The email contained my official decision to step down as e-board member because of the recent decisions made by the rest of the e-board as well as my general uncomfortability with the Secretary’s Zionist perspective.”

When asked about their decision to resign, former President Rox Glassenberg declined to comment. 

A new Prism Discord server was created on March 19. Although questions and comments about the divestment campaign and the shutdown of the former server continue to be posted by general members of the club, they remain ignored by e-board members. According to Saboia, the issue is also not discussed in current e-board meetings, despite his efforts to bring it up. 

Elections for the next semester’s e-board closed on April 15th. Ryan Saboia was elected president, Makayla Towne as vice president, Miles Bell as treasurer, Rachael Harvie as gender advocate, and Jared Raudales as sexuality advocate. Elections for secretary and several other positions will be held soon. CUSC is currently meeting with each e-board member to discuss the situation and update PRISM’s charter which according to Saboia is “massively outdated” and “one of the core issues.”  It is disappointing, to say the least, that Prism is a club that does not take its members’ opinions into account regarding important issues. By choosing not to take a stance on the genocide of the Palestinian people, Prism is effectively turning a blind eye to the issue. 

In Saboia’s opinion, the root of Prism’s current controversy stems from the fact that “Prism at Clark has a reputation of being a white club. Students of color don’t feel embraced at Prism, what happened is a reflection of that.” Despite this, Saboia still believes there is hope for Prism to improve and, “bring together queerness and BIPOC-ness,” although, “Prism considers those identities completely separate.” 

When asked, PRISM did not respond to comment on the situation.