Persecution Mania

Author: Kiernan McAlpine

Pursuant to the majority of this school's faculty's agreement that Congress' "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" legislation should entail that military recruiters not be allowed on campus, and Harvard's President's postulation that, scientifically speaking, it is within the realm of possibility that the majority of women are less fit by nature to perform well in the hard sciences, I have formulated a number of proposals which are worthy of your consideration.

First, we ought to forbid the use of government-issue $20 bills at Midd Express, the Grille, the Juice Bar, the College Store and other places of business on campus because Andrew Jackson, the President whose image is emblazoned on each and every $20 bill, pursued policies of discrimination and genocide towards Native Americans.

Second, as we have opted to label the Christmas tree a "holiday tree," we ought to tear out the organ, overhaul the interior and remove the steeple from Mead Chapel because the centerpiece pipe organ and the church spire is unquestionably Christian in design, as it may be found only in churches of that religion - such décor is invariably absent from synagogues, mosques and temples - in order to affirm Middlebury's secular charter and maintain Mead Chapel as a non-denominational, persecution-free place of worship.

My "Constitutional Law" class's field-trip this fall to hear Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court at the University of Vermont ought to have been forbidden because his biting dissent in the recent homosexual rights case Lawrence v. Texas affirms the constitutionality of anti-sodomy statutes directed exclusively towards non-heterosexual activity. And, should the college ever be so honored as to receive an offer from any Supreme Court Justice to give a talk here on campus, we ought to refuse their offer politely, as the Supreme Court has never overturned the 1944 case Korematsu v. United States, in which the Court affirmed the internment of Japanese Americans solely on the basis of race. Given the great focus of terrorist profiling efforts on foreign Muslims as well as Arab Americans, and the continuing detainment without trial of suspected enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and elsewhere, the continued legality of internment ought to cause great concern to our community, and we ought to take every opportunity to state emphatically our disapproval.

Before commencing any forum for discussing issues on campus, we ought to state that the idea of a "fair" debate is an entirely social distinction, and although it has nothing in itself to do with the subject matter, this will not necessarily appear to be the case to the participants and any comment which might disclose some bias or entertain the possibility of a socially inappropriate opinion subjects that person to great personal risk, such as loss of a teaching position or social probation.

Finally, although my list of proposals is certainly incomplete, we ought to add to our school's mission statement the proposition that every public act that in some way uses or establishes power - which is to say, every public act - is something that must be put down by force lest it establish an unequal power relationship, and that we intend to prepare our students for the world by encouraging them to make no statement and to choose no course of action until the criteria for making it are certain to be without any form of bias whatsoever.

I believe that these proposals, if implemented, would continue to pave the College's way towards the establishment of a respectful academic and social environment.