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As a member of the Rice community, I read last week's issue of the Thresher at first with amusement, then incredulity, then growing interest. At Rice, one tends to dismiss issues such as those brought up there as irrelevant, but I think the Thresher staff raised many good points, and there is one in particular that I think needs to be emphasized.

Although it was mentioned several times in the editorial, I think it merits stating again: The Thresher and the "Trasher" are two entirely seperate entities. I know it took me several readings to drive that point home, but when it finally sunk in I realized that it's really quite an important distinction; namely, that in their role as editors of the "Trasher." the individuals involved were not in any way acting in their official role as editors of the Thresher .

Now, some may see this as an academic or irrelevant distinction, or worse yet, as an attempted "dodge" on the part of the Thresher and its staff. That is a dangerous attitude. The situation the Thresher is in is no different than two clubs at Rice which happen to share some of the same officers, say the Student Center Advisory Board and the Rice Program Council. If a member of one of those organizations, acting in their official role as, say, an RPC or SCAB representative, were to, for example, violate the university code on harassment, one could censure that individual and/or the organization they represented, but certainly it would be inappropriate to censure the other organization. That would be tantamount to placing the responsibility on each and every organization for not only the official activities of its members but also their "free-time" activities, so to speak. Or, if that example is not compelling enough, consider an employee of a major corporation such as IBM or Ernst & Young who decides, in their spare time, to run the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and, in that role, breaks the law in some way.

One would certainly expect that person to be punished, and we might, as a society, expect the company to act in good faith on that knowledge, but certainly we could not and should not expect the company to have known about that employee's activities.

I do not condone what those who harassed Allison Fine ('97) did, nor do I condone the "Trasher." But I see no reason to blame the Thresher for their actions.

Adam Hunter

Will Rice '98

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 19, 1997 issue.