After exploring the Little Black Dress exhibit at the Missouri History Museum, Alberto De La Rosa and Anusree Natraj headed to Bixby’s to try the restaurant’s famous brunch, basking in a rather “Devil Wears Prada”-esque sense of having gathered some basics on the history of black dresses.

Earlier this week, an opinion—“To Be Middle Eastern at Wash. U.”—was published in Student Life. The letter begins by announcing the start of a smear campaign, but it was the false, unclear and misleading allegations that appeared within the letter itself that were both offensive and deeply disturbing.

A series of emails relating to the “Ferguson to Ayotzinapa to Palestine” event reveal that the Missouri History Museum’s cancellation of the panel followed a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis (JCRC) bringing the event to the attention of Frances Levine, the museum’s president.

The topic is certainly heated, but institutions must make an honest effort to handle it, and that includes Wash. U. The question is whether we are capable of listening to voices in a context that also represents their narrative.

With growing ties between #BlackLivesMatter and Palestine, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups are reviving a deliberate campaign of selective history: relegating the solidarity between black and Palestinian liberation movements—past and present— to taboo memory.

Instead of the intended panel discussion on Thursday, planners organized a rally outside the museum. Under the #SelectiveHistory banner, which protesters of the museum’s decision used on social media last week, a wide variety of around 75 attendees showed up to the changed event, which still included speakers from the four groups.

Beyond mere optics, the museum is indeed engaging in selective history by denying a connection between the social movements in Ferguson and Mexico with those occurring in Palestine.

Around 75 protesters from around the St. Louis community congregated outside the Missouri History Museum on Thursday night to protest the museum’s cancellation of an event that planned to discuss the similarities between recent events in Ferguson, Ayotzinapa and Palestine.

An event planned for Thursday night has been cancelled at the Missouri History Museum after organizers refused to meet the museum’s demand that Palestinian activists be removed from a panel of speakers exploring the similarities between social movements in Ferguson, Ayotzinapa and Palestine.

How cruelly ironic that a museum of history would deny a voice to those who have been continuously expunged from the historical record.