News
Harvard Medical School Cancels Student Groups’ Pro-Palestine Vigil
News
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan Urges Democrats to Rethink Federal Agency Function at IOP Forum
News
Cyanobacteria Advisory Expected To Lift Before Head of the Charles Regatta
News
After QuOffice’s Closure, Its Staff Are No Longer Confidential Resources for Students Reporting Sexual Misconduct
News
Harvard Still On Track To Reach Fossil Fuel-Neutral Status by 2026, Sustainability Report Finds
To the editors:
The use of offensive publicity stunts to express political opposition to affirmative action and similar policies (“Whites-Only Rule at B.U. Is Booed,” news, Nov. 22) is nothing new. In 2004, an “affirmative action bake sale” held at Columbia demonstrated a similarly disturbing trend of parody and ignorance, rather than informed debate, about important issues related to race relations in higher education. While events such as these do, of course, provoke dialogue (at Columbia, it contributed to the founding of our Office of Multicultural Affairs), they also trivialize matters that are deserving of serious discussion. More recently, the Columbia University College Republicans held a “global warming party” (complete with snow cones, Frisbees, and beach umbrellas) to protest a campus screening of “An Inconvenient Truth.” I sincerely hope that, on all campuses, conservative political groups will return to respectable discourse rather than engaging in these ridiculous antics.
JEREMY SCHWARTZ
New York City
November 25, 2006
The writer is a sophomore at Columbia University.
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.