Yesterday, I authored a piece entitled “Madeleine Albright's Legacy: Paving the Way for "Firsts." This piece has since been unpublished, as the framing of the article implicitly endorsed the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq under Albright’s tenure as U.S. Secretary for State and failed to capture the transgressions of her leadership — transgressions that are frequently overshadowed by her status as an inspiration to women. I wanted to publish this note as an apology for the harm the piece caused, and to hold myself accountable for its impact, rather than silently unpublishing and pretending it never happened.

In writing the article, my intended message was to acknowledge Albright’s recent death and the work she did to create opportunities for women and minorities in political leadership roles in the United States. However, in the process I included a paragraph which only briefly touched on the numerous atrocities of Albright’s career, labeling them as “mistakes” and “moments of reflection,” which inadvertently trivialized truly deplorable actions and showed disregard for non-U.S. American lives.

As a young, white, female American, my positionality skewed my perception and framing of Albright and her legacy. I condemn the horrific loss of life resulted by sanctions on Iraq during Albright’s time, as well as the many other foreign policy decisions that Albright spearheaded, such as the U.S.’s inaction in Rwanda. Despite my disagreement with these decisions, I recognize that nearly every piece of media and every lesson I was taught in school glorified Albright as a shining example of female empowerment and compassionate leadership. These depictions of Albright undoubtedly affected my depiction of her legacy and led me to write in a way which endorsed a widely propagated white, U.S. American view that diminishes the importance of non-white lives. The atrocities that took place in Iraq, Serbia and other countries cannot be extricated from Albright’s legacy to focus solely on her status as a female in power. They are a part of her legacy just as much as her gender and immigrant background, and in the long run overshadow those features of her career.

I made the decision to take down the article entirely as opposed to making edits to better acknowledge the crimes of Albright’s career because to do so felt like an attempt to put an easy bandaid on a piece that was fundamentally misguided and harmful. Unfortunately, the piece was rushed and carelessly written. I take full responsibility and sincerely apologize for the lack of effort I put in and the awareness I had in writing it.

The piece neglected to cover the problematic parts of Albright’s legacy, in the process failing to address many of my own issues with her work and does not represent the kind of journalism The Gazelle stands for. I am acutely aware of the harm caused by the piece, especially in my role as Editor in Chief. To publish a piece like this, written with minimal attention to tone and narrative, sets an unfortunate example for my fellow writers and editors. The Gazelle is not known to commonly unpublish articles, and I recognize the weight of the decision to do so in this case.

I strive to be an inclusive individual, writer and editor, and in writing this piece, I failed to live up to that standard. We are often the products of the families who raise us, the education systems in which we study and the media to which we are exposed. These sources all present different perspectives, biases, and blindsplots, often neglecting to paint the full picture of important narratives like these with international scope. It is our responsibility to diversify our exposure to these sources, and to better inform our understanding of the implications of these sorts of global events. This was an unfortunate mistake, one which I promise to learn from and that has pushed me to be better moving forward. As always, I am grateful to all our readers for their support of our work and for holding us accountable in situations like these.