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01-DEC-00
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Letters to the Editor
Complaint letter fits university policy
To the editor:
The Thresher's editors are to be commended for criticizing the cheers protest letter as "exaggerating" and "distorting" reality ("Cheers letter is too broad," Nov. 17).
The editors failed, however, to realize that the letter is a perfectly tailored complaint under the university's sexual harassment policy.
Sexual harassment is not evidenced by facts, but rather by feelings. Garden-variety harassment requires that an aggressor threaten a victim; sexual harassment needs not include any real threat, but instead requires a third party: the environment.
If, according to students' feelings, their environment is hostile, then contributors to that environment are "harassers" and offended students are "victims." (Amazingly, a harasser can simultaneously be a victim - witness the Sid Richardson College secretaries, who are charged as sexual harassers of fellow students, and who are defended as victims of their sexually charged Sid environment!)
Since the idea of sexual harassment is non-objective, any factual evidence cited in the cheers letter is superfluous.
All that remains is for the assistant dean for Student Judicial Programs to weigh the feelings of offended parties, gauge the extent of the institutionalization of the patriarchy at Rice and lay down the law.
Chris Klick
Hanszen '00
Cheers fail to spawn stereotypical behavior
To the editor:
All of you who wrote and signed the formal complaint letter seem to miss a major point. The college cheers are meaningless or at best ironic.
In academic terms: The most common way to define your membership in a social group is through signals.
These are arbitrary behaviors, such as manners or maintaining a front lawn of perfect green grass, which have no connection to the actual tastes or preferences of the people who use them.
Within the hedges, college cheers and the language associated with them are signals.
Why do I know that the cheers have no connection to the tastes or preferences of the Rice population? Because if they did, "unrestrained violently aggressive heterosexual males" would be the norm, or at least represented, at Rice.
As it stands, I haven't met one example of this type in my last five years at Rice. Compare the actual norm of Rice men with the "violently aggressive heterosexual" type and I think you might chuckle too.
Kindra Welch
Baker senior
Authors of complaint should be commended
To the editor:
Rachel Bren must not be living in the same Rice community that I am ("Cheers fail to produce sexist campus attitude," Nov. 17). I challenge her: What makes the three-mile radius we live in so different from the community outside of it? Maybe it's the lack of diversity or the fact that people don't yell obscene cheers.
I am extremely bothered at the fact that Bonnie Bryan called the four students submitting the complaint "overly sensitive" ("Offended students don't have to attend events," Nov. 17). Let me just state that nothing has ever changed in our society without the existence of "overly sensitive" people who are willing to take a stand.
I disagree with the assumption that they are both making, one that makes it seem as if these four students are speaking on their own behalf. They are creating a voice for those not normally given one on the precious Rice campus.
There are other students who feel alienated. Trust me. I am one of them.
Bren questions Duh, Cloots, Brand and Wiesenthal about other aspects of Rice life, such as the number of women engineers or the fact that Rice women don't wear makeup. Let me respond for them. Women have made great strides to achieve what they have today. It is because of "overly sensitive" women who took a stand and fought against norms ingrained in society that women students are now able to get an education at all.
However, sexism has not ended and it is explicit in the cheers. They alienate me and are against the law. I agree with the freedom of speech - anyone has a right to say what they want when they want - but derogatory cheers should not be institutionalized at this school.
I've often heard the phrase "your rights end where mine begin," and mine begin with the right to not feel harassed in my home and school environment.
I think students who believe Rice to be perfect should take a look around. Not everyone is happy, not everyone likes Rice. Change can and should be made.
I applaud Duh, Cloots, Brand and Wiesenthal for taking action.
Mayra Cuello
Lovett sophomore
Students should keep fighting against cheers
To the editor:
I am very pleased to see a movement on campus to tone down or eliminate many of the sexually explicit or profane slogans and behaviors which have been offered through the years as either a tool for building residential college camaraderie or as a way to insult other colleges.
I always wondered why Orientation Week coordinators thought these were good ideas, and I wonder why college masters and others in leadership do not step in to say that enough is enough. If some parents ever knew what Rice is "really" like, I bet that a number of quality students would not have ever attended the school. The elite of America should not behave this way.
I distinctly recall from my time on campus that the Thresher was expected to be run by editors with an anti-censorship, pro-First Amendment stance, and the Backpage reflected some extremely offensive stuff as a result. The one year that I know that a set of "pro-decency" editors were in charge, the backlash was huge.
Offensive behavior masquerading as humor is still offensive, and hints at some sort of deficiency in the emotional and mental development of those who do it. I encourage all of those who signed the letter to get college cheers changed to hang tough. Work to change the campus climate in general. It's a pain to be harassed by those less enlightened than yourselves, but can anyone really say that profanity and sexual talk are worth fighting for?
Keith Tipton
Brown '93
Sexism exists outside the hedges as well
To the editor:
I'm writing as an "interested" alum, but I would probably be better characterized as a disgusted one. I find it ironic that Alexis Wiesenthal entered Rice as a Jones College freshman and then transferred to Baker College. I ask you, which college has the more offensive cheer: "Bitches ready rock" or "We're from hell, we're from Baker, grab your ankles, meet your maker"?
Find something truly unjust to fight against, kids. If you think the environment at Rice is oppressive to women, wait until you graduate and enter the real world!
Amy Harrison
Jones '98
Masters demonstrate distrust of students
To the editor:
As students, we are very concerned with the current issues that are determining the path Rice will take. After reading the front page of the Thresher last week, the future looks grim. While the events at Sid Richardson College and the debate about college cheers are major concerns, they are, for the most part, student-led, and as such don't trouble us as much as the proposed changes to Beer-Bike ("Beer-bike to lose trucks, get trailers," Nov. 10).
It seems that over the last couple of years the trust that Rice places in its students has been consistently undermined by the masters, first by changing Night of Decadence and now by proposing to change Beer-Bike. We feel the masters have repeatedly overstepped their bounds of authority in making decisions that affect the student body. Specifically, the masters have made decisions that affect NOD and Beer-Bike under the guise of being safety-conscious with little to no student input.
Although we realize that they probably feel their actions are primarily in our best interests, they are supposed to be our mentors, not our parents.
The fact that coordinators had been "asked not to discuss the changes until a proposal had been created" is ludicrous. It seems that if any changes, let alone a concrete proposal, should be made, the impetus should be concerned students, not overprotective masters. We don't feel that 13 water balloon-related injuries is enough to warrant a change to what has become one of Rice's most student-loved events. Getting hurt by a water balloon isn't the end of the world; students get injured every day playing intramural sports, powderpuff and the like, and no one seems to be concerned about those injuries, simply because they don't involve alcohol.
Some students choose not to participate in those activities because of the potential for injury. Similarly, the minute percentage of the student body that doesn't want to face the wrath of water balloons can choose not to participate in the parade. The point is, the masters should not take that choice away from the students.
Concern over "big, rolling wheels" is similarly unjustified. The trucks are driven by responsible and sober members of the college community, and only travel for about 50 feet at a time, at no more than 10 miles an hour. Even with intoxicated students running between the trucks, they are moving so slowly that the drivers have more than enough time to react and stop when the occasional student does cross their path. It would take a vast conspiracy involving numerous students for someone to get hurt by these slow, plodding trucks.
So why should you care about this new compromise? After all, the new trailer proposal is not completely dissimilar to what we've been doing all along. While we are concerned with the slow phasing out of the best parts of Beer-Bike, that is not the main point of our objection.
Our main concern here is that the masters are taking away our freedom to make choices for ourselves. What makes Rice more than an Ivy League wannabe is that the administration trusts us to make responsible decisions on our own behalf. When the masters begin to undermine that trust without due cause, Rice becomes just another institution that cares more about its reputation than about the quality of the undergraduate experience.
Insulating us from harm or opposing points of view doesn't make us better off, it makes us mindless. If we live our college lives in a bubble, how can we possibly make the transition to the "real world"?
Matt Ludwig
Brown junior
Sarah Morgan
Sid senior
Backpage offends, fails in attempt at humor
To the editor:
When it comes to the issue of college cheers, last week's Thresher seems to be split down the middle. Literally. In the front portion of the paper, the news coverage by Elizabeth Jardina and Rachel Rustin ("160 sign college cheers letter," Nov. 17) was detailed, and I was impressed by both the thorough reporting and the placement of the article (front and center, right where it belongs).
I was proud to see the Rice newspaper tackle this issue in such depth. The staff editorials in the opinion section are well thought-out critiques of the letter. I agree with many of the sentiments of the staff editorials - that the letter attempted to tackle too many issues and would have been much clearer if it had been shorter.
I signed the petition because I happen to agree with the broader arguments raised by the letter, which is why I was happy to sign it, but I agree with the finer points of the editors' arguments and thank them for pointing them out in a public forum where it can make some positive difference.
But for all the quality journalism in the front of the Thresher, the whole newspaper is discredited by this past week's Backpage. What may have been a childish attempt at satire reads also as a hostile diatribe against the few students at Rice who are willing to stand up to the uncomfortable sexual climate that is cultivated by many traditional Rice events.
Though the Backpage editor fails utterly at humor, he succeeds in making repeated references to violence against women in a pornographic contest ("Hold on to your butts - it's the Donkey Punch Classifieds"), as well as reducing the female student body at large to a pack of "whiny bitches."
The Backpage is supposed to be funny, and traditionally it has been granted extra freedom because sometimes irreverent humor is the most powerful form of communication. This most recent Backpage was neither irreverent, nor humorous - it was just a sad repetition of the sort of comments that prompted the letter about college cheers to be written in the first place.
Abigail Cohen
Hanszen senior
Eggs damage more than campus buildings
To the editor:
I'm writing in response to the letter to the editor that Anthony Holder wrote last week ("Baker 13 should not damage buildings," Nov. 17) with regard to Club 13 runners damaging the Mech Lab. I agree with Mr. Holder that "the concept of Club 13 is full of fun and innocent mischief." Unfortunately, however, many people don't see it that way.
The statement that "Water and shaving cream don't do the same kind of damage that eggs do" applies not only to mechanical engineering labs, it also applies to naked Rice students.
As a one-time regular Club 13 runner, I've experienced pretty much everything that a Club 13 runner can be made to experience, and I can tell you on the basis of that experience that for some people on this campus, all rules of common decency dissolve the instant they see a naked person covered in shaving cream running up to their college.
Granted, it's not the type of thing you see every day while walking around our beautiful campus, but I hardly think that it justifies spraying us with old urine (and other things the nature of which I can only guess), throwing full beer cans at us from high elevations, pelting us with eggs at close ranges (most likely the offense which caused Mr. Holder's letter), trying to trip us with tripwires, etc., all of which have happened to me personally during my Club 13 running career (but none of which actually dissuaded me from continuing).
My answer to Mr. Holder's letter, then, is that those of us who choose to shed our clothes once or twice a month and run naked across this college campus agree that there should not have been eggs befouling the outside of the Mech Lab. I can assure you that they came not from us but - if from the night's festivities at all - from our overzealous pursuers.
Hopefully on future 13th's and 31st's, the small number of you out there who actually come out and oppose Club 13 when it runs (for which we thank you - without you our runs would be pretty dull) will decide to stick to water balloons and leave the eggs at home.
Sol Villarreal
Baker junior
Christians at Rice should live their faith
To the editor:
Recently, a Backpage parody of Jesus, a column by the opinion editor and various letters to the editor have critiqued Christianity on campus. Therefore, being a Christian myself, I ask that the whole community of Christians at Rice take some time to consider our response to the negative attention that we have been getting lately.
In America today, Christians face the difficult task of witnessing to their faith while respecting the religious plurality common to our national life. Indeed, this challenge reminds people of all faiths that we are better off to share and listen to one another's experiences of God than to quickly condemn others for their different views. Forums like the inter-faith Thanksgiving dinner offer the opportunity for sorely needed religious dialogue.
To some, the very words "Christian" and "church" unfortunately connote images of intolerance, narrow-mindedness and exclusivity. Yet that depiction pales before the biblical vision of Christian fellowship where people recognize the followers of Jesus by their commitment to charity, love for others and passion for peace and justice.
In the words of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Christians at their best "are the means of healing hurts, of building community, of feeding the hungry - God's agents of transfiguration" in a broken world.
If Christians at Rice exercised a living faith in these ways every day, we would have a firmer foundation from which to share our beliefs with other people. It's time to remember that "he does not preach what he practices till he has practiced what he preaches."
Matthew Chen
Wiess freshman
Rice becoming too politically correct
To the editor:
The evolution of the Rice environment over the past couple of years has made us realize that Rice is no longer the unique, carefree, supportive place we once thought it was.
When the upperclassmen matriculated, Rice was still a place where the students worked hard, but there was a great deal of room for fun and crazy events to take place. The university has intruded upon the lives of the students and has begun to tell us how we can act in order to prevent us from getting hurt.
The 1997 Orientation Week matriculation ceremony started out wild and crazy; the Rice students appeared to be fun and liberated, which made them unique and unlike our images of students from Ivy League schools. Jacks at this O-Week were suddenly banned, and since then, we have never had real jacks. Now, all we can do is hear stories about the old days at Rice and the excitement from back then. Students are no longer trusted to act responsibly or to have a good time while getting a great education.
There are so many other events that have had similar things happen to them. Events like Night of Decadence, Hanszen Tequila Night and Beer-Bike have drawn all sorts of criticism from masters and the administration. Rice, to us, is not a high-pressure environment when it comes to drinking.
Many students do not drink, and these students are not shunned for it. There is no need for the university to stop activities they feel are dangerous because of their alcohol content. Students who do not want to drink should make that decision for themselves, and so should the students who do choose to drink.
If Rice students cannot learn to stand up for what they believe in while in college, how can they be expected to deal with the pressure of the important decisions they will be faced with when they assume leadership roles in their communities? The same is true at Beer-Bike. Students choose whether to drink, just as they choose to put themselves in danger of being run over by a truck going one mile an hour. They understand that if something hits you, it might hurt, whether that something is a water balloon or a monster truck.
Rice should be teaching us to nurture our sense of personal responsibility, not teaching us how to follow rules. If students do not want to be hit by water balloons, they should not attend large-scale water balloon fights.
We feel the students should be able to make decisions on their own, with the support of the masters and administration. The function of the masters and the administration is to support students in their interests and efforts. Instead, we feel the role of the masters has changed, and they have become the ones policing and criticizing student behavior.
We feel a master's job is not to prevent students from getting hurt - we do not feel that they are here to act as our parents in that respect. We had parental supervision for 18 years prior to matriculation. We feel the masters are here to be our family and to support us when we make mistakes. If they are standing over our shoulders policing our actions, we will never have the opportunity to learn for ourselves what we can and cannot or should and should not do.
College is truly the last time when we can realistically make mistakes and be in an environment that supports us. While in college, we are here to find ourselves, and in that process students make mistakes, but the university should be supportive of its students.
Most of us value these last four years to be crazy and a time to learn more about ourselves. We also know we need to be prepared to go out in the real world, thus we need to learn our own limits rather than simply being told what they are, as we have been told our entire lives by our parents and teachers.
Rice is no longer the same fun and relaxed place we matriculated into. People are afraid to be adventurous and risk judgment at the hands of the masters or the university. We hate to see this change in the school we care so deeply about and have so much pride in.
Rice is becoming some bizarre cross between Baylor and "PCU," a combination we cannot feel the same way about. As we graduate, we are afraid for Rice's future. We are afraid that Rice is going to keep losing all of its unique qualities that have made it so special to us. We are proud and excited that Rice is becoming a more visible top-notch university, but these advances will be worthless if Rice loses all of the qualities that make it unique.
Brian Hill
Kevin Lynch
Mike Khodadoust
Baker seniors
Jenessa Shapiro
Baker junior
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