Everything is changing. Besides the usual changes that occur every spring -- flowers blooming, fourth years leaving and frat boys wearing khaki shorts instead of pants -- the world outside our college community safe haven is changing too. An enemy regime that's been intact before most of the student body was born is falling, if not already fallen. The United Nations is virtually defunct. In a time of political upheaval, security breaches, and constant change it's comforting to know some things are unwavering -- namely, hypocrisy in free speech and political cowardice in government.
The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors on March 10 resolved, among other things, to stop all race-based admissions. The Board eradicated the admissions policies following a letter from Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore warning that Board members could "face personal legal liability if they allowed actions that did not meet a strict legal test." Kilgore's spokesperson argued that affirmative action was no longer necessary and legal because the state has gotten rid of "the last vestiges of segregation."
Unsurprisingly, following the Board's decision, several campus groups, including the NAACP, were up in arms. On Sunday March 6, the Board bowed to public outcry, changed their minds, and backpedaled their way out of their previous stance. The Board should be applauded -- they managed to last almost a whole month against opposition. Well done, boys, well done.
The Board would have been worthy of some applause had they been able to establish some sort of backbone to defend their policy. Sadly, they found nothing to defend in a decision that would rid a large state college of an unfair, racist policy that only acts as a crutch for some students and a barrier for others.
The saddest part of Sunday's move, regardless of how students and professional educators feel about affirmative action, is the sheer lack of will power and determination the Board holds. If the members feel strongly enough in a policy, then they must feel strongly enough to stick by said policy if they are faced with opposition. In reality, whatever the Board does, there will be detractors and protestors. Are they just going to cave to public pressure from now on as they did with the affirmative action policy?
That's the message they are sending to students -- get enough people to hold meetings and protests and we will do whatever you say. That type of attitude will put a dangerous new mentality into public sentiment at Tech. The students, faculty, alumni and state government will now think of the Board as nothing better then a whipping boy for the loudest protestors. Granted, the decision was made behind closed doors, but that shouldn't matter. The Board's responsibility is not to make decisions that coincide with student opinion but that will benefit the school. This not only breaks down the structure of the higher-education politics but makes Tech's Board the laughing stock of Virginian college governing boards. A bad board makes for a bad school.
Tech isn't the only educational institution that should be ashamed of itself though. Deep down south, Beaufort High School of Beaufort, South Carolina suspended 35 students for wearing shirts displaying the Confederate flag to school ("Suspended 'Dixie chics' defend attire," CNN.com, April 6, 2003). The issue of the flag -- whether or not it is in fact racist -- is not at issue here. Rather, at issue is the school's brilliant administration's reasoning for banning said flags.
Earlier in the year, a student attempting to recruit for the Aryan nation was wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt. There is no question that the Aryan nation is in fact a racist institution and does not belong on what should be a safe high school campus. However, simply because that individual sick student was wearing a Confederate flag does it then mean that all others should immediately be grouped with his twisted and disgusting thinking. At best, that type of thinking is wrong, and at worst its out right stereotyping.
Using the same logic as the Beauford High administration, let's examine the Sept. 11 attacks. 19 Muslim men spouting Koran verses and crying for a jihad killed over 3000 innocents. So, if 19 Muslims kill Americans and hate America then all Muslims must hate America. Anyone of course who dared to assert this would immediately be branded as racist and ignorant. Yet, when it comes to the Confederate flag, an historic emblem of the South, it's acceptable to assume everyone in one group shares the exact same feelings, thoughts, and ideologies. Hypocritical doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
Thankfully though, the world is changing. The cool days of spring will change to the hot humid days of summer. The fourth years will move on, and the next batch of first years will move in. And hopefully the Tech Board will toughen up and Beauford High's faculty will wisen up. If they don't, there's always forced change -- election season.
(Maggie Bowden is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at mbowden@cavalierdaily.com.)
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