Maroon News

Issue date: 4/15/05 Section: Commentary

I do not live at Colgate. I commute to Colgate from across the street at Phi Delta Theta located at 114 Broad St. It is this one fact that drives our administration absolutely batty. The crux of the problem, which President Chopp et al refuse to admit, is that they simply cannot abide having groups of Colgate students thinking, acting and working outside of their well established control. Colgate has often been described as a City on a Hill - and the City on a Hill has become restless and intolerant of any who may impede its march towards the philosophical uniformity of its student body. The City on a Hill, rather than projecting the example and ideals of freedom through the light of knowledge and education has instead taken its message to its self-proclaimed subjects by force of arms.

Last Tuesday, Ms. Chopp deigned to descend from her faux-Ivy Tower to hear the demands of the rabble, crowded into the James B. Colgate Hall foyer. Above her, on the second floor landing, stood her coterie of yes-men and yes-women, sallow faced with the gray pallor of dead fish, limp arms akimbo in mock outrage at the audacity of the simple-minded student-folk below. "How dare they assume to bring their ill-formed ideals of democracy and freedom to the entrance-hall of our lady-sovereign," they seemed to say. Over 100 students, lit with the fire of democratic passion, stared straight back at where senior Sean Devlin, granted the right to stand halfway up the stairway with Ms. Chopp, prepared to present Ms. Chopp with a 1,200 signature petition and 13 demands regarding the very freedom of Colgate students, trampled upon by the dictates of our maroon-soaked monarchy. Ms. Chopp, with a slightly embarrassed smile crinkling her lips, responded to the demands by declaring that, despite Colgate's status as a private institution, the administration was respecting the rights of its students. Upon hissing from her audience, Ms. Chopp responded, and my memory fails me, so I paraphrase: "Well, you were allowed to demonstrate that today, weren't you?"

Well, in response, let me thank you, Ms. Chopp for restraining yourself one last time. Thank you Ms. Chopp for deciding that breaking up a rally was one guaranteed freedom that you would not violate. Thank you Ms. Chopp for demeaning all of us inside an astonishing ten seconds by assuming that the freedoms we enjoy are the providence of an administration that, in the name of benevolence, restrains itself from taking that final step, that fateful step, of making its utter control over our lives fully explicit. Colgate may indeed be a private institution, and I may have chosen to go to Colgate, but then again, not receiving a higher education was simply not an option. One hundred years ago, anti-union forces in our nation's factories argued that life-endangering and autocratic working conditions were of little consequence, since a worker could simply choose to work elsewhere. Of course, these conditions pervaded all areas of employment and one couldn't very well choose not to seek employment. Today, college campuses all over the land are cracking down on student rights, seeking to create their own bastions of social experimentation to design the ultimate all-encompassing educational environment. The choice we face is either to go to Colgate or to approach the working world with naught but a high-school degree.

Continued...

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