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The Battalion
Page 9 • Wednesday, November 13, 2002
A step towards student involvement
Student appointed to co-chair committee is a rare instance of representation
JENELLL WILSON
T exas A&M President Dr.
Robert M. Gates recently
appointed a student as co-
chairman of the committee in
charge of finding a new vice presi
dent of Student Affairs.
Brandon Hill, executive vice president of the
Student Government Association and senior agricul
tural business major, will help lead the search to
replace Dr. J. Malon Southerland when he retires next
August. While students have been members of search
committees before, none have served as co-chair.
This is a positive step for students because it
allows them to have more control of issues that
directly affect them. The new vice president will
have many opportunities to influence the lives of
A&M students, including student organizations.
Fish Camp and the Memorial Student Center, and
students have a right to have a say in who is chosen
for the position.
Unfortunately, this right was given by President
Gates — it was not something many A&M students
actively fought for.
College students do not have enough input in
matters that concern them and much of it is their
own fault. Young people have become apathetic to
public affairs. In 1998, the Pew Research Center
asked a representative sample of Americans how
many minutes they spent the previous day getting
news from various sources. Those aged 18-24 only
spent an average of nine minutes reading a newspa
per and a quarter of the sampled young people had
spent no time the previous day getting news.
As a result, young people are often ignorant
about what is going on in the world.
The 1994 National Election Study found only
two percent of those aged 18-24 could identify the
chief justice of the United States Supreme Court;
only 40 percent knew the Supreme Court decides
whether or not laws are unconstitutional and only 39 percent
knew that the president nominates federal judges.
This lack of knowledge continues today. In 2000, the
National Election Study found that oply 26 percent of 18-24
year-olds followed politics most or some of the time, compared
to 73 percent of the elderly older than age 65. This generational
knowledge gap did not exist 30 years ago.
Transient populations, which include college students, are the
least-represented populations in the United States because they
vote less than any other age group. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, during the 2000 elections, only 51 percent
of people ages 18-24 were registered to vote, com
pared to almost 71 percent of those ages 65-74.
Only half of the registered college-age population
voted.
The Census Bureau report cites residency
requirements as a hurdle to college students partic
ipating in the democratic process. As students
move, they are constantly forced to re-register. It
quickly becomes a hassle and, as a result, almost
one-half of American college students skip the
process completely.
Luckily, some groups on campus are not so apa
thetic. Aggies for Democracy, for example, are
seeking greater representation of A&M students in
the College Station City Council and even though
Jared Copeland did not win the election, he tried to
change how A&M students are treated in the local
court system by running for justice of the peace.
The MSC's Current Issues Awareness tries to raise
the knowledge of A&M students about contempo
rary public issues.
Despite these efforts, there needs to be more
participation.
If young people want issues that affect them to
be addressed, they must become proactive. They
need to do more to look after their own interests.
After all, there is no reason for President Gates or
elected officials to care about matters that affect
college-aged people if young people don't really
care themselves.
THE BATTALION
Jenelle Wilson is a junior
political science major.
Tennessee fraternity should not be disbanded
Kappa Sigma members wore blackface and dressed as Jackson 5 for Halloween
JENNIFER LOZANO
I n the early
morning hours
of Oct. 23,
Aneisha Davis,
president of the
Black Student
Alliance was driving near the University of
Tennessee campus when she encountered a
man in blackface and a cango hat, according
to the Daily Beacon, University of Tennessee’s
daily newspaper.
Blackface is the term for facepaint whites
used to darken their faces while acting in
plays which typically served to “lampoon
Negroes, performing songs and skits that sen
timentalized the nightmare of slave life,”
according to Musicalsl01.com, a Web site on
the history of musical entertainment.
Davis was told that the man in blackface
was a Kappa Sigma member who was imper
sonating Louis Armstrong. In addition to the
Armstrong impersonator, five other members
were in blackface depicting the Jackson 5.
Although Kappa Sigma members claim they
were just having fun, Davis and other student
leaders of the black community at the
University of Tennessee have correctly pressed
the administration for acknowledgement and
reparations for this ignorant, racially insensi
tive and disrespectful act.
However, the strength of the 12-point pro
posal issued by the directors council, an organ
ization composed of black student leaders, is
diminished by not focusing on the importance
of sound diversity education in the college
community. Instead, the proposal includes sev
eral excessive demands that attack personal
freedoms and only exacerbates the tense racial
situation on campus and inhibit communication
between the two opposing factions.
According to the Daily Beacon, the propos
al asked for a public apology from both Kappa
Sigma and the university, as well as suspen
sion of the fraternity.
In addition, the proposal requested the cre
ation of an honor code of respect to be signed
by all incoming and current students, the cre
ation of a minority judicial task force and a
student-run board to monitor the increase of
hiring, tenure and promotion of minority fac
ulty and staff. Although some of these sugges
tions are progressive and fair, to ask for the
immediate removal of the fraternity without an
investigation or fair trial and the permanent
placement of this “incident” on the record of
those involved is excessive and off-target.
As Mossimo Pigilucci pointed out in a
Daily Beacon editorial, although the students
involved should have known better, there is no
way to know whether the students were mali
ciously and overtly trying to be racist or if
they were simply being ignorant and naive.
Although not a good excuse, if this is the case,
they deserve a chance to speak their piece and
give their subjective account of the matter
before being expelled from school.
As for the permanent placement of this
transgression on the students record, the U.S.
Constitution protects all types of speech, not
just the kind that appeals to the mass majority.
The students have a right to such speech,
therefore this transgression does not belong on
the students’ records. The incident needs to be
viewed for what it is: a lack of education.
According to the Daily Beacon, Kappa
Sigma had recently attended a sensitivity sem
inar regarding race issues and has had previ
ous problems with blackface incidents.
However, the severity of the matter has yet
to be comprehended. Unfortunately, no singu
lar amount of punitive action or limiting of
students’ free speech can instill this type of
understanding. Only with “long-term, encom
passing” educational programs, as Pigliucci
demands, can this type of racial understanding
be achieved.
Jennifer Lozano is a senior
English major.
Young Conservatives
initiate IRS investigation
In response to Mariano Castillo's
Nov. 12 column:
The Young Conservatives of Texas
UCT) is saddened but not surprised at
the lack of facts in Castillo's column,
Particularly that Texas A&M returned
need-based monies in excess of
£850,000 this year. To correct what
Castillo writes about our Web page, we
Want progress for this campus. While
rCT wants Texas A&M to move forward,
Castillo and Vision 2020 would have
the campus move left.
Castillo's argument that Gates' dona-
. n and Vision 2020's diversity imper
ative recruit and retain qualified minor-
Jty students regardless of race defies
,0 gic. Race-based recruiting and schol
arships do not disregard race - it is
their only focus. It would be wise of
Castillo to realize that one person's
social commentary, misconstrued,
ecomes another's race-baiting fodder.
Castillo should be ashamed to sug-
8 e st that YCT wish to block the admis-
Sl ° n °f qualified minority students,
''“hat YCT does oppose is the use of
scholarships and recruiting to fill racial
quotas. "Diversity" has long been the
shield used to espouse and practice
'scrimination on this campus. The
Word "racist" has become the cheapest
e fense against debate and the poor-
est argument against logic.
Castillo is right about one thing. YCT
has not properly responded to the
Texas A&M administration's use of race-
based recruiting and scholarships.
Heeding Castillo's call for action,
Tuesday, YCT initiated an IRS investiga
tion of the scholarship fund. Its use of
race while maintaining a tax-exempt
status is a violation of the IRS code 501
c 3. We would like to thank Castillo for
helping us realize that empty rhetoric
will no longer do and that real, sub
stantive action is needed to fight
racism. Aggies have a lot in common;
lets try to focus on those aspects for a
change.
Tyler Dunman
Chairman of the Young
Conservatives of Texas A&M
A&M has responsibility
to recruit best students
In response to Mariano Castillo's
Nov. 12 column:
The most racist implication of the
Young Conservatives' rhetoric is their
assumption that scholarship money
intended to recruit minority students
can only be used to recruit under-qual
ified students.
To fear this is to state that there are
not qualified minority students to
which administration officials can offer
scholarships to. The administration is
offering scholarships to minority stu
MAIL CALL
dents in order to entice the best and
the brightest minority students to our
campus.
The Texas A&M University administra
tion has an obligation to try to recruit
the best, brightest and most diverse
faculty, staff, and student body to cre
ate a community that is reflective of the
ethnic, geographic, and economic
makeup of the state of Texas. It is
incumbent upon all of us to create an
open and welcoming climate for stu
dents of any color, creed or back
ground. The actions and statements of
the Young Conservatives of Texas do
not help us to achieve this.
Barry Hammond
Class of 2003
Coalition boycott similar
to Civil Rights Movement
In response to Richard Bray's Oct. 23
column:
Martin Luther King Jr. was frequently
criticized for using nonviolent direct
action to correct injustice. In his letter
from a Birmingham jail, King wrote,
"You deplore the demonstrations, but
your statement, I am sorry to say, fails
to express a similar concern for the
conditions that brought about the
demonstrations."
Richard Bray's column criticized the
peaceful activism of the Coalition for
Life while completely failing to address
the conditions that brought about
these actions.
According to numbers reported by
the Eagle and the Texas Department of
Health, Planned Parenthood is now the
leading cause of death in Brazos
County. Annual deaths reported by
cause: heart disease - 195, cancer -
165, accidents - 46, HIV/AIDS - 8,
abortion at Planned Parenthood - 509.
Simply stated. Planned Parenthood's
controversial facility in Bryan exploits
women and destroys human life. For
this reason, 60 churches and thou
sands of individuals in Aggieland have
united in opposition to Planned
Parenthood's harmful agenda. For this
reason, more than 400 people have
committed to pray outside of the abor
tion facility, peacefully protesting every
day and every hour the clinic is open.
For this reason, people of faith want to
know what businesses support
Planned Parenthood so they won't
indirectly underwrite that which they
morally oppose. For this reason, com
munity support for the Coalition for Life
is growing more rapidly than ever.
Has this all gone too far? Absolutely:
since 1999 over 1,460 children have
died at Planned Parenthood in Bryan.
That’s why the Coalition for Life is
doing something about it.
David Bereit
Executive Director, Coalition for Life