2008 Woodie Awards
F.A.C.T. Chasing Imaginary Monster
Ilyse Morgenstein
Issue date: 4/22/05 Section: Commentary
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F.A.C.T., an organization comprised of students and alumni, wishes to have SGA recognition. And, according to the minutes from Tuesday night's Senate meeting, 34 senators are in favor of recognizing F.A.C.T. Which is more pathetic: that a group of people that includes both students and non-students thinks that the SGA can approve its existence OR that SGA senators cease to see the problem in approving a so-called student group that has outside funding and non-student members? To me, it is the latter, for it shows what a fabulous job F.A.C.T. has done in brainwashing seemingly the majority of campus into at least listening to an argument based on falsities, an argument that simply does not hold water.
Let us examine Sigma Chi as a case study in how the administration and the ownership of a fraternity house will neither limit nor impair an individual's or a group's freedom of speech. Right now, Sigma Chi has two signs on its lawn: one reads, "For Sale Cost: Your Freedom of Speech," and the other says, "Colgate is Killing Off Frats." Both of these are directly opposed to what the administration has said throughout the implementation of the New Vision over the past three years; President Chopp just recently sent out a letter explaining the reality behind the acquisitions and how Colgate will not and cannot limit our First Amendment rights. Sigma Chi has not, nor has it ever, owned the house or the property on which it stands; it has always, since they have occupied it, been the property of Colgate University. So, if Sigma Chi has anti-administration banners on its lawn, and Colgate owns that lawn, and Colgate is trying to limit our freedom of speech (as both the signs and F.A.C.T. indicate), then surely both signs should have been ordered off the lawn or Sigma Chi should have been penalized in some way.
For all of F.A.C.T.'s threats of a Greek doomsday, where expressing a collective opinion leads to the death of organizations and individual's voices, Sigma Chi lives on, defiant, angry, and anti-administration. In the weeks in which the banners have been on the lawn, neither President Chopp nor Dean Weinberg-let alone any of the other Colgate administrators-have stormed the fraternity, demanding that they take their signs down, and Sigma Chi has not been punished, disbanded, or kicked off campus for expressing dissatisfaction with the administration or for displaying F.A.C.T.'s banner.
Let us examine Sigma Chi as a case study in how the administration and the ownership of a fraternity house will neither limit nor impair an individual's or a group's freedom of speech. Right now, Sigma Chi has two signs on its lawn: one reads, "For Sale Cost: Your Freedom of Speech," and the other says, "Colgate is Killing Off Frats." Both of these are directly opposed to what the administration has said throughout the implementation of the New Vision over the past three years; President Chopp just recently sent out a letter explaining the reality behind the acquisitions and how Colgate will not and cannot limit our First Amendment rights. Sigma Chi has not, nor has it ever, owned the house or the property on which it stands; it has always, since they have occupied it, been the property of Colgate University. So, if Sigma Chi has anti-administration banners on its lawn, and Colgate owns that lawn, and Colgate is trying to limit our freedom of speech (as both the signs and F.A.C.T. indicate), then surely both signs should have been ordered off the lawn or Sigma Chi should have been penalized in some way.
For all of F.A.C.T.'s threats of a Greek doomsday, where expressing a collective opinion leads to the death of organizations and individual's voices, Sigma Chi lives on, defiant, angry, and anti-administration. In the weeks in which the banners have been on the lawn, neither President Chopp nor Dean Weinberg-let alone any of the other Colgate administrators-have stormed the fraternity, demanding that they take their signs down, and Sigma Chi has not been punished, disbanded, or kicked off campus for expressing dissatisfaction with the administration or for displaying F.A.C.T.'s banner.