EDITORIAL: AWARENESS

Recent campus events give excellent opportunities to be informed citizens

Whether you've noticed or not, this campus has suddenly been besieged by awareness issues. The Pride rally, while not directly attacking the Navy ROTC program and its conflict with university policy, has the purpose of raising awareness about the Navy ROTC issue. The Student Association tabled the Navy ROTC issue for five years in 1993 so that the U.S. Department of Defense could get its act together and define its policy on homosexuality.

Brown Resident Associate Matt Taylor attended the last SA meeting to get the word out that there is a Tibetan photo exhibit in the Student Center's Blair Lounge that is sponsored by the Chinese Communist government. Until a few students complained, propaganda material on the "peaceful" transition of Tibet under communist rule was readily displayed on a table outside the lounge. The Bell Curve Symposium was definitely an awareness- raising event. Even the Cuban speaker that will be here at Rice is here to raise awareness about Cuban life, culture and literature.

It's time to sit back and applaud the people on all sides of the above issues for their hard work in bringing these issues to the forefront, attacking the "getting students beyond the hedges" problem from a different angle and allowing the issues to be discussed in the only way possible at an American institution of higher learning.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the October 13, 1995 issue.

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