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(10/09/08 7:39am)
THREE YEARS ago in these pages, I dismissed “Green Dining” as nothing more than a green-eyed initiative by the profit-hungry Aramark. This wasn’t just a populist stump speech. With the grip of scavenging vultures, University Dining was salivating to snatch away student trays on “Tray-less Tuesdays” to chew into food wastage and gobbling water usage. But it didn’t have the stomach for much heartier, costlier initiatives on the menu, like recycling or composting. So students were left juggling their plates as Dining masked corporate greed with environmental charity. Today, I am glad to eat my words. A wilted student effort for greener dining has blossomed into a balanced diet of green measures involving an amorphous group of committed students, faculty and staff. University Dining’s narrow appetite for trays has grown into a ravenous one that now includes organic foods, recycling, and composting. The University’s sustainability rating on the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s annual Green Report Card has gone from a rotten D+ in 2007 to a respectable B in 2009. While there is still much room for improvement, the progress thus far has been remarkable and deserves recognition. Green Dining was born in 2005 as the child of University student Kendall Singleton. But when its hastily implemented “Tray-less Tuesdays” initiative blew up in University Dining’s face, ties between Green Dining and the University soured and the group disbanded. A year later, University Dining finally woke up to its woeful sustainability record and decided to spearhead the Green Dining initiative with broader community involvement. The purpose, as University Dining Director Brent Beringer deftly put it, “was to figure out what students would like us to do as opposed to doing what we think they would like us to do.” Finally, University Dining would abdicate the throne of benevolent dictator and start engaging the community on an even keel. Soothing rhetoric only goes so far. As my dad likes to say, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” But even by these standards, Green Dining’s successes are certainly appetizing. According to a recent report on sustainability initiatives compiled by Marketing Manager Nicole Jackson, Green Dining has pioneered efforts like promoting reusable, recyclable shopping bags, sponsoring local food receptions and sustainability luncheons, using more biodegradable products, and complementing “Tray-less” initiatives with better student communication and other proposals like scraping trays to measure food waste. Last semester, the group designed a Bull’s Eye Program in order to prioritize which kinds of sustainable foods should take precedence instead of clamoring for them all at once. The “bull’s eye” ended up having local foods at the center and seasonal, organic, humane and fair trade on the outer rings in order of decreasing purchasing priority. This semester, Baringer told me that University Dining was in the process of getting an official recycling permit from the Department of Environmental Quality. But even the aroma of refreshing progress should not prevent the University community from hungering for change. For instance, according to Environmental System Management Coordinator Jessica Wenger, Aramark’s health code hinders its ability to purchase food directly from local farmers without a third party certifier. Since Baringer agreed that this was “not the only model” available, University Dining should look into other options to broaden its engagement with the local community and extend the impact of Green Dining. In addition, a deeper study of the University’s Green Report Card shows that it receives a “C” for the “Climate Change and Energy” section and a big fat “F” for endowment transparency. While there is little University Dining can do about the latter, it can do a lot about the former by cooperating with other University bodies to promote greater energy conservation. In addition to climate change, promotional programs like local food receptions should also be better publicized via mass e-mails to students. Who knew that there was a free local foods reception at the Fine Arts Cafe last Friday, with grilled chicken Caesar salad and mini-beef philly cheese steaks? Awareness is an important first step for conservation, and free food is the best way to raise it. Even as I drag my feet to grab another plate of food at the “Tray-less” dining halls, I grumble a little less now that I am part of a broader conservation effort instead of a profit-raking corporate scam. One can only hope that Green Dining continues to use its recipe for community-based sustainability to dish out equally tasty and creative concoctions in the future. That way, it can gradually turn green skeptics like myself into converts by making them eat humble pie. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(10/02/08 5:42am)
AT A CONFERENCE I attended last week on Southeast Asia in Washington, D.C., I was struck by two things. First, the number of scholars who asked me to rationalize McCain’s vice-presidential pick (I deserve credit for even trying). Second, and more sordidly, their own rationalization of Southeast Asia’s inaction on Burma, despite a consensus that the international community needs to rework its approach. The Burma issue ought to make one’s blood boil. For two decades, the ruling junta has been disenfranchising and terrorizing the opposition party which initially won 80 percent of parliament. But lest ‘democracy promotion’ opponents cringe, consider basic human rights. The junta employs tens of thousands of child soldiers while raping, pillaging and enslaving the country’s ethnic groups. 700,000 refugees have spilled out from the country, along with an unhealthy dose of heroin and HIV/AIDS. And to top it all off, the junta decided to hold a constitutional referendum in the midst of the worst natural disaster in Burmese history when a cyclone struck earlier this year.For decades, the United States and Europe have imposed feel-good sanctions and prayed that the junta will make good on their hopes for regime change. But even moralistic policies should not escape the scrutiny of practical judgment. Current sanctions have not only failed, but have succeeded in hardening the junta’s grip on power at the expense of the Burmese people. For one, some Asian countries have been more than happy to fund brutal regimes where the West cannot. When the Burmese textile industry collapsed under sanctions, women who once sewed clothes began selling their bodies. Legitimate industry dried up and it was inundated by a black market of drugs, gems and timber. The regime was able to dismiss hyperinflation as a Western-created phenomenon and dissidents as ‘tools of foreign subversion’. The junta has slowly curled back into its paranoid shell of isolation. Yet the conference participants were hell-bent on excusing the inexcusable and denying the undeniable. “We come from different civilizations and baselines”, muttered one under his gray, bushy mustache. But in which ‘civilization’ does one hold a referendum while a cyclone kills 146,000 people? “We will do it in our own time”, another counseled soothingly. I would sympathize with this if I were asking for an expedition to Mars or a space walk. But urgency is paramount if people are suffering every day under a brutal regime. My personal favorite: “we all have different ideas of what human rights are.” But does anyone disagree that every human being deserves not to be raped, pillaged and starved by their government? One would hope not.“Do you want another Iraq or Afghanistan? They are both cakewalks considering what we will encounter in Burma”, cried one exasperated participant. The zaniness nearly caused my eyes to pop out of their sockets. Of course, only the naïve would expect intervention in a place where humanitarian nations have no interests. Let me propose a more “cakewalk-ish” suggestion. First, waiting for democracy to germinate like Jack’s fabled Beanstalk before rapprochement is a little like hoping Sarah Palin will be well-versed in foreign affairs by tonight’s vice-presidential debate: miracles rarely happen. Hence, there should be a “Seven Party Dialogue” akin to the North Korean talks comprising India, China, the United States, the European Union, Japan, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Burma. To butcher an already butchered election sound bite, there will be no “preconditions” but plenty of “preparations.” As Michael Green and Derek Mitchell suggested last year in Foreign Affairs magazine, the parties would meet to discuss a security guarantee for Burma’s territorial integrity while proposing some form of joint rule between the junta and the opposition. The compromise is realistic because the nationalistic and paranoid junta tends to cling to power tightly as if its survival depended on it. Sometimes one has little choice but to accept a defunct, brutal regime as part of the reconciliation process, much like Zimbabwe’s dictator Mugabe and bruised opposition leader Tsvangirai.Second, if this grand bargain fails, the international community should coordinate on limited sanctions that dry up assets and investments of the junta rather than the food and water of the Burmese people. Sanctions will not work if some countries continue to privilege value over values. The world may also eventually need to dispatch highly conditional, regulated humanitarian aid to help rebuild infrastructure for the Burmese people.The world is low on hollow excuses and high on empty rhetoric in its approach to Burma. Sporadic outbursts of attention often inspire a flicker of hope. But with Washington saddled with an economic crisis and two wars, change on this issue is something few seem to believe in. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(09/25/08 4:00am)
FROM A MAN bending forks into bracelets to a woman demanding salt for her apple, Greyhound bus rides are never complete without a healthy dose of sketchiness. So, on a ride two weeks ago, I buried my head into Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book Blink, which argued that near-unconscious conclusions about a person you see or a house you want could be every bit as valid as painstaking research. Having spent two nervous hours sizing up Greyhound customers’ sketchiness through arbitrary indicators, it seemed appealing to me. But, as Gladwell notes, the problem with ‘thin-slicing’ information is that you don’t dig below the surface. A farmer reeking of cow dung may be a rich landowner. Warren Harding ‘looked presidential’ but wasn’t much of a president. And UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander’s much-derided research into affirmative action may in fact enrich our perspective on the effects of affirmative action today. Sander is no stranger to vociferous debate. He has spent two decades wrestling with the touchy issue of affirmative action and its negative effects on black law students. Now, he is hunting for 30 years of data on California State Bar exam-takers to probe if affirmative action places candidates into elite institutions where they are unable to compete and doomed to fail. This, he thinks, may explain why a 1990s Law School Admissions Council study showed blacks were four times more likely than whites to flunk the bar exam. Or prove his blazing assertion that there would have been more successful black lawyers had affirmative action not existed and minority students attended less prestigious institutions. Blink. And enter the bickering empty vessels who have turned fiery controversy into burnt hysteria. The State Bar adamantly withheld the data, citing vacuous “confidentiality” issues. Not to be outdone, Sander’s academic critics smeared him as a racist pseudo-scientist from the Holocaust. Even more reasoned critics smacked of hypocrisy as they awkwardly poked holes at his uncompleted research while opposing his right to conduct it. Needless to say, these void shells need to stop blinking and start thinking. The State Bar must allow Sander to acquire the data regardless of his potentially fiery conclusions. This is the cornerstone of free speech. If Sander’s findings prove to be high on polemics but low on substance, they ought to be debunked by better research, not preemptive First Ammendment violations. And given this country’s first-rate legal research, there is little need for such cowardice. Sander is white. But he is far from a bitter victim of affirmative action or an honorary member of the Ku Klux Clan. According to the Los Angeles Times, he was a former Volunteers in Service to America participant, a fair-housing activist, and an ardent campaigner for Chicago’s first black mayor. Of course, it may be instinctual for a racist to cry: “my best friend is (insert minority group).” Nevertheless, we ought to take someone’s record into account before engaging in Tourette’s-like name-calling. The State Bar’s confidentiality claims are exaggerated. Yes, freedom of information must be balanced with the right to privacy. But Sander has already pledged not to disclose individual names. Some claim his research design inadequately resolves privacy issues, since California’s top law schools admitted few black students who can easily be traced. If so, the issue ought to be how to retool the research design to meet these standards, rather than premature rejection. There is also plenty of top-notch research and surface observations that gravely undermine Sander’s theory. Logically, the bar exam is by no means a perfect indicator of a lawyer’s ability. Using it as a primary determinant of capabilities is as futile as using SAT scores to measure intelligence. Furthermore, statistics suggests that affirmative action is far from a feel-good but do-harm policy Sander suggests. Veta Richardson, executive director of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, claims that minorities and women account for about 25 percent of Fortune 500 general counsel, five-times what it was 11 years ago. This is a significant advancement. Research-wise, professors Jesse Rothstein and Albert Yoon released a statistical study earlier this month directly contradicting Sander’s theory. Black students in selective schools actually scored better than those in less selective schools on every academic measure from graduation rates to bar exam pass rates. If affirmative action were abolished as Sander wishes, Rothstein said “the number of black lawyers would fall dramatically ... a lot of black students who go to law school now would not otherwise get into any law school.” Given the availability of prolific research and the dearth of convincing excuses, it is unclear why so many are allergic to apply a universal freedom to someone with whom they disagree. In a dictatorial state, unorthodox ideas may be greeted with a stern “leave it out.” But in the vibrant, free market of academic ideas, the right response to Sander’s polemics ought to be: “bring it on.”Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(09/18/08 5:07am)
WHEN I participated in a set of policy debates at a think tank this summer, the joke went that if you ever felt tongue-tied, never fear: The free speech card is usually here. Butter it up with a Jefferson quote, sprinkle in some democratic jargon, play it and voila: Your opponent is speechless. After all, who can argue against free speech or talking to your enemies?But reality does not a Jefferson quote make. It’s waste of time to debate Brother Micah in the Amphitheater on whether dinosaurs existed, or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on whether the Holocaust happened . Why? Because reasoned debate presumes reason: Both sides have to have concrete evidence, not just illogical bluster.The Amethyst Initiative flunks this basic test. Its statement pushes lowering the 21 drinking age with a lot of whining but without a shred of presentable evidence. So, like the tongue-tied debater, the drafters pose as free speech advocates, professing to promote “an informed and dispassionate debate”. Intoxicated University students may have been swayed. But more sobering assessments by the Chicago Tribune and The Economist clearly noted that this was merely veneer for their true agenda. Since the Initiative is nothing but baseless claims cloaked in “free speech” rhetoric, University President John T. Casteen, III should waste no time rejecting it.The facts are clear and fall on one side. Annual surveys conducted by Monitoring the Futureprove that the number of college students engaging in binge drinking fell from 45 percent in 1984 to 40 percent in 2006. And the Chicago Tribune noted that the number of people aged 16 to 20 killed in alcohol-related crashes has plunged by almost 60 percent since the 21 law (by contrast, when states lowered the age limit, such crashes rose). I could go on, but you get the point.But the Amethyst Initiative sees no need for facts when it can trust its “gut.” It bizarrely blames the 21 age for fostering a culture of clandestine binge-drinking, when the data indicates it helped curb it. It laments how soldiers can die for this country but cannot drink to it, when it is clear that exercising one right does not entitle a teenager to every other unrelated one, particularly one that is a proven potential safety hazard. And it rambles on about the ethical dilemmas of fake ID presenters, when it is clear that those individuals clearly privileged alcohol over the honor code anyway. I would go on, but this is the exhaustive list of justifications.The broader “rationale” for lowering the drinking age reeks of the same illogic. Ask any college student (or yourself): They don’t drink just because it’s illegal, they drink because they want to. If it is legalized, logic indicates there will probably be more drinking, data from previous experience shows that there will be a greater safety hazard, and science shows there will be more time for alcohol to negatively affect cerebral development, which continues until 25. If the age is lowered to 18, one can also expect 16 and 17 year olds to crash the party, and the problem to extend into high schools. Even a drunk could probably figure this one out.Medical, public health and safety associations like the American Medical Association have all lined up on one side against the Amethyst Initiative simply because the facts are also one-sided. In a speech last month, Casteen himself candidly noted the lack of “developed and published evidence” and said he was “not at this point persuaded that they have all their facts on the table.” As the president of one of the premier research institutions in the world, he should go a step further and reject this hodgepodge of baseless allegations.Casteen should also redouble efforts to supplement the wise current age limit with tougher enforcement and better education. The herd of first-years streaming from dorms to Rugby on weekends suggests that the former is easier said than done. But the University is a pioneer institution in alcohol education and reducing irresponsible drinking. Last month, a study by the University’s Social Norms Institute’s Jennifer Bauerle showed that correcting students’ misperceptions about campus drinking over a six-year period caused 2,480 more students to report 0 of 10 serious alcohol-related consequences, and 2,000 fewer students to be injured by alcohol-related events. Smart education works well in tandem with a sensible law.When Jefferson uttered the words at the top of this page, he specifically urged us to follow truth wherever it may lead. The Amethyst Initiative is anything but a truthful attempt at reasoned debate. And it should receive treatment no different from the loud noise of Brother Micah in the Amphitheater: Shake your head disappointingly, and continue walking on by. Sorry Mr. Jefferson, but this error isn’t even one worth combating.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(09/10/08 5:07am)
MY FIRST trip to Clemons this semester was a little like living a bad dream. Half dazed at half past eight, I dragged my feet to the temporary back entrance only to discover that it was no longer in use. Fluster turned to bewilderment when I stumbled past the brown doors of the newly restored front entrance and eyed two fish tanks with my droopy eyelids (had I sleepwalked into a pet shop?). And the new group stations, with one snazzy LCD screen for every six sleek seats, were something out of science fiction. Returning University students probably had a less dramatized but equally shell-shocked reaction to the Clemons revolution. The once endless rows of desktop computers were now thinned to the brink of extinction. New fish tanks were flanked by futuristic, mobile group work stations. And observant patrons might even have spotted the 200 new power outlets or the ultra-fast computer stations which log in within 15 seconds (a record by University standards). Any returning upperclassman could not help but feel old, backward or mortified. And any sharp Opinion columnist might have scribbled a mental note in his head about another ill-advised, shocking administrative change made without proper and adequate student consultation. But however much old hats might grimace at the newly-fashioned Clemons, it is a student-rooted and future-driven transformation that embraces the spirit of technological innovation. And when it comes to assessing policy changes, tangible boons ought to outweigh incoherent boos. Finger-pointing students anxious to scapegoat the administration ought to look a little closer to home. The Clemons transformation was in fact a product of three student focus groups of 12-15 each, from various years and majors, that met last year. The top concerns, in order of priority, were: more power, greater flexibility for group stations, new, enclosed cubes, a more pleasant environment and printing. The library responded to these demands comprehensively by installing more power outlets, throwing in trendy chairs and LCD screens, placing a new fish tank for pleasure and useful software for laptop printing. Intriguingly, Clemons Library Outreach Coordinator Matt Ball also told me that the fish tanks were the most conservative option mentioned during the focus groups to “enhance the library environment” – the more colorful options being a petting zoo and a waterfall. In short, this appears to be a case of grassroots reform rather than force-fed change. The changes are also rooted in futuristic trends at the University and the broader technological world. According to Ball, ITC surveys conducted last year concluded that almost all first-years carried their laptops on grounds, while most of the desktop usage in libraries was only for non-research surfing and e-mail. Why have desktops when everyone carries their laptops nowadays and uses desktops for non-academic purposes? The various reforms are also part of a mobile computing initiative launched in consultation with President Casteen to ensure that the library system is keeping abreast with contemporary technological developments. In the laptop world, the top concerns are power and mobility, not rigid desktops and bulky wooden tables. But while it is refreshing to see an innovative streak in an institution too often drowned in its own traditions, the manner in which the well-meaning changes were formulated and then introduced was opaque and unrepresentative. The focus groups were formed from a sign-up sheet at the library last year when most students probably had not heard of the process at all. This is important since focus groups are only as effective as their representativeness, which in turn is a function of publicity and transparency. Had more painstaking efforts been invested in advertising, one might think (or hope) that there would have been some reasoned voices to counter zany initiatives like petting-zoos or fish tanks. And this attention to publicity need not be backbreaking task either — advertising the survey on the Library website or a simple editorial by external relations in The Cavalier Daily would have been sufficient. It is equally perturbing that the library staff thought it would rather put students through shock-therapy than advertise a comprehensive list of changes to allow patrons to learn about and gradually adapt to reform. I had to schedule a meeting with Ball just to learn about all the changes made, and more than half of them were ones I had neither heard about nor seen. Opaqueness also raises eyebrows and doubts among students regarding the wisdom of the initiatives. For instance, Karl Philippoff, a third-year environmental science major, is convinced that “the new group stations are meant for Commerce students”, a perception echoed by several other Clemons users I interviewed. These concerns could have been addressed with a simple link on the library Web site entitled “new library changes”. Fish tanks aside, returning students probably should have had less of a problem with the inevitable and futuristic transformation of Clemons library that truly had their interests at heart. But then again, such a cool, level-headed response presumes that students participated and were well-informed of the scope, pace and extent of the reforms. But even for a forward-thinking library of a top-notch public university, this was too much too ask.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Wednesday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com
(09/03/08 8:25am)
EXACTLY 45 years after Martin Luther King’s visionary “I Have a Dream” speech, a feverish crowd of 80,000 packed itself like sardines into the feisty atmosphere of Invesco Stadium in Denver, waiting to hear nothing less than its sequel. So the stage was set for yet another energetic, transformative and inspirational speech by Barack Obama as he accepted the Democratic nomination. But alas, Obama sounded more like a normal politician than a prophet on a night where people were expecting divine revelation. It lacked the sort of thrill that usually races up Chris Matthews’s leg. Fanatical youths waved “change we can believe in” signs even as the speech had abandoned the dreamy mantra in favor of the more corporeal “the change that we need.” Transcendental sermons about race and reinvigorating the innovative American spirit were shelved in favor of a programmatic list of problems and solutions that invited textual comparisons by political pundits to a wooden Al Gore address. And the colorful theme of uniting Red and Blue America from his defining 2004 Boston convention speech was relegated to a mere paragraph or two about unity on abortion, gun control, same sex marriage and immigration.The address itself as a whole was less a stirring call to arms than it was a well-delivered checklist of doubts he needed to squelch about his candidacy. Are my airy goals too vague for you? Let me “spell out exactly what that change would mean” on everything from Social Security and healthcare to outsourcing and the economy for most of my speech. Concerned I don’t attack McCain enough? Here’s my most direct attack on how he’s Bush’s third term. Think I’m a celebrity like Paris Hilton? Let me tell you my American story. And are you anxious about my inexperience on foreign policy issues? Well, I’ve been right before and “I look forward to debating them with John McCain.”In that “American Promise” speech, Obama underwent what Max Weber famously labeled the “routinization of charisma” and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson calls “the Obama transformation”. He went from a man embodying a different brand of politics to a parrot of trite democratic bread and butter arguments like demonizing big corporations and decrying outsourcing. He morphed from a flag-bearer of post-partisanship to another tiresome critic of the Bush policies. In short, he flipped from a unique candidate pledging to transform politics to yet another naïve youth who was transformed by politics. Idealistic youths flocking to see a sellout rock-star concert were understandably disappointed when they heard the same old broken record of policy proposals they had read on his campaign Web site. But anyone looking beyond the normal but well-delivered speech understands that this was a shift that Obama had to make. August witnessed the stirrings of what The Economist rightly labeled “Obama fatigue”. Pew Research Center polls in August revealed that Americans had heard too much about Barack Obama but knew too little about his policy positions. The McCain campaign painted him as a self-absorbed Paris Hilton, far too elitist to address America’s problems beyond saying “yes we can.” His wavering on the Russian incursion into Georgia raised eyebrows about his ‘judgment,’ while rumblings that Clinton voters would either sit the election out or defect raised doubts about party unity. Before the Democratic Convention began last week, polls either showed Obama’s lead over McCain withering or McCain surging to the lead. Under those conditions, it is understandable, even commendable, that Obama chose to change his speech from an airy to concrete one. He needed to talk less about himself and his feel-good proposals and more about the American people and their long list of grievances. He had to ramble on like a traditional Democrat instead of agitating like a post-partisan politician. And he was required to use his legendary charisma and prolific oratorical skills to specifically lay out his political vision rather than to just deliver another reverberating speech. The sentences did not have to stick. They just needed to reassure. Critics may claim that his acceptance speech raises doubts about whether he really will deliver on the transformative politics that he promises and inspires. A boring speech also risks thinning the swarming crowd of feisty rank and file campaign volunteers and new voters that are so crucial to the success of his campaign. But voters already know the inspirational and transformative Barack Obama of “yes we can.” So it can’t hurt that the half-black, first term senator with a funny name has finally chosen to inject some constancy into a campaign that has promised far too much change. After all, everyone knows that Obama has a dream. They just want to hear enough about it to know if they can sleep soundly at night when he is president.Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavailer Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(08/27/08 6:08am)
AS I WATCHED the television cameras scan across Chinese spectators mimicking the officially sanctioned Olympic cheer and conforming to “spectator etiquette campaigns,” my mother handed me a Washington Post article saying the University had banned all signs at home athletic games. The troubling parallel could not be more striking. The University’s ban is a clear infringement of free speech and a disgrace to its much-touted Jeffersonian ideals. Signs are a visual representation of people’s views or feelings, and hence a blanket ban on them naturally hinders free expression. The ban will also take the wind out of the sails of “home advantage” and dampen the fiery and euphoric atmosphere that surrounds sports at this University. Gone are the days when maddened fans would slave hours concocting clever banners and waving them furiously at games, salivating at the opportunity to get on television or have some fun.Some have opined that the new ban is a better policy because the University restricts all signs across the spectrum of opinion rather than targeting specific signs it does not agree with as it has done in the past (read: “Fire Groh”). This is spin worthy of Fox News but little else. Restricting freedom of expression is wrong on principle whether or not it is targeted at a particular perspective or all perspectives as a whole. The athletic department may find the new ban “better” because it does not have to lose sleep determining what is “derogatory” or “profane” on a case-by-case basis if there are no signs altogether. But students ought not accept this travesty just so that the athletic department will be better rested.Athletic department spokesman Rich Murray soothingly assured me in an interview that “the intention of the policy is to support and promote sportsmanship and a positive game-day environment for all fans.” But his statement sounded eerily similar to and as empty as propagandized Chinese statements assuring the world its Olympic policies were intended to protect its citizens’ constitutional right to free speech. Besides, as any sports fan knows, waving signs and yelling at the top of one’s voice is not bad sportsmanship but a good sign of vital, psychological home ground advantage. While the University can justify its new policy with smooth rhetoric, its poor articulation of the policy change to students is simply inexcusable. When I tried to cross-check the Washington Post’s reference to an “e-mail to students” on the policy, I found only one cold line buried in a 70-line e-mail entitled “Student Ticketing for Athletics Events”: “Beginning this year, signs are not permitted inside athletic facilities. Thank you for your cooperation.” At least the Chinese government bothered to organize mass public campaigns advertising and rationalizing its infringements on free speech, I thought to myself. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the University intentionally introduced the policy buried in a mass e-mail one week before courses begin to ensure low visibility and minimum fuss. Articulation and principles aside, the policy itself also appears unclear and ill-defined. While the GameDay Central Web site states that “all banners, signs and flags” are prohibited, the e-mail only referred to “signs.” Which one is it? Murray also refused to clarify what exactly the definition of “sign” was in the interview, which could also raise eyebrows. As a Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist pondered, “does it include pieces of cloth with written messages, T-shirts with messages or body-painted messages”? No student knows the exact rationale behind this unacceptable, ill-defined and horrendously unpublicized ban. Media speculation traces it back to last year, when University student Michael Becker got his controversial “Fire Groh” sign taken away and the athletic department eventually decided that a blanket ban would prevent such isolated incidents from recurring. But if it is indeed the case, Becker told me that the real problem was not his offensive sign but incoherent policy. He was initially told he could bring his sign in since it was not considered derogatory or offensive, but the athletic department changed its mind during the third quarter of the game. If so, the department should have gone through the grueling task of setting consistent and clear standards about what is allowed, rather than impinging on freedom of speech because it was simply too laborious to do so. The athletic department of this Jeffersonian institution has instead chosen to put expediency above the preservation of fundamental freedoms. And that should be a worrying sign to every one of its students. Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
(04/23/08 4:00am)
OOPS, I did it again. Despite my best efforts, I unconsciously "self-segregated" myself last week by sitting with other Asians in Newcomb. In doing so, I once again blew my chance to tear down the walls of self-selection by not sharing french fries with other communities.
(04/16/08 4:00am)
DROOPY eyed and disheveled, I prepared for a class-long struggle to stay awake through my Western European politics lecture last Monday. I was pleasantly surprised (and rudely awakened), however, when Professor Gerard Alexander launched instead into an interesting discussion regarding study groups.
(04/09/08 4:00am)
"CHINA has blocked all media on Tibet. Come hear the other side of the story", read the bright orange flyers stapled on the walls around Cabell Hall last week. Perhaps the organization missed the release of a strong petition from Chinese intellectuals demanding negotiations with the Dalai Lama. Or the fact that, for the first time, China aired a BBC interview with the Dalai Lama in full.
(04/02/08 4:00am)
I NEVER thought I would find myself defending a gossip forum riddled with sexual promiscuity and homophobic attacks. Juicy Campus is a menace that combines anonymous, libelous and derogatory college hearsay with almost non-existent regulation. This destructive mix has spawned emotional breakdowns, legal actions and university-sponsored boycotts.
(03/26/08 4:00am)
WHEN GOD told Mary he hadn't had a vasectomy in a Cavalier Daily comic two weeks ago, it was cast as a broader, week-long newspaper assault on Christianity. In response, the furious minions of the Catholic League paralyzed the newspaper's operations through incessant angry calls and e-mails. More reasoned critics, including some members of the newspaper, suggested that the comics lacked "serious value." The newspaper removed the comics from its online site and issued an apology for any offense caused.
(03/19/08 4:00am)
Using preemption to justify invading Iraq or Iran is debatable. Using it to arrest allegedly crazed individuals who violate community laws is not. So it was to my great surprise that individuals criticized the University's College at Wise for expelling its student, Steven Barber, for penning a threatening story and illegally possessing weapons on school property. Contrary to widespread calls of injustice by the pro-gun crowd, the "Wise Doctrine of Preemption," as I call it, was an exemplary model that should be hailed as a case study for other institutions as one response to a particular "case of concern."
(03/12/08 4:00am)
IN CASE all you ignorant activists out there haven't noticed, the administration sent out its strongest signal yet of its unflinching official commitment to curriculum internationalization at the University. Three weeks ago it assiduously pasted several TV screens onto an Alderman Library wall and called it the "International Media Wall." So take that, you curriculum internationalizers!
(02/20/08 5:00am)
ORGANIZATIONS are often prone? to vociferous debates and scrutiny about how they promote change at this University.Should the Living Wage campaign have organized a sit-in that eventually caused its downfall? Should the Curriculum Internationalization initiative have castigated the administration instead of 'engaging' it (whatever that means)?
(02/06/08 5:00am)
I AM used to being called an 'anti-Semite' for my criticisms related to Israel. Pointing out that the Jewish state had a terrorist prime minister in Menachem Begin, or was far too brutal in its treatment of Palestinians, has made me the target of some heated column responses. .
(01/30/08 5:00am)
"WHO SAYS the University isn't diverse?" smirked a student in front of me as he recited the bold print on The Cavalier Daily: "U.Va. ranks first for black enrollment."
(01/23/08 5:00am)
WE HARP on about how Barack Obama isn't really black, and how Hillary Clinton isn't even human. So, it befuddles me when the headline story on CNN rambles on about the "tough choice" black women face between an African American and a woman in the South Carolina Democratic primary. It annoys me when some Republicans characterize a realistic immigration plan as "amnesty," or when the Democrats refuse to acknowledge a new military strategy is working in Iraq. And yes, it infuriates me when Ron Paul's correct characterizations of American foreign policy mistakes gives way to an isolationist ideology that belongs in the Stone Age.
(01/16/08 5:00am)
MORE than a month has passed since the world saw a remarkable revolution in Malaysia. Late last year, 10,000 ethnic Indians demonstrated against government-based racial discrimination in the nation's capital -- the biggest ethnic riots since 1969. The protesters challenged their undemocratic nation's apartheid policy that provides unfair privileges for majority Muslim Malays, thereby exacerbating inter-racial economic inequality and undermining religious freedom.
(12/05/07 5:00am)
LAST WEEK, the lead editorial in The Cavalier Daily labeled the Lawn Selection Committee a nepotistic aristocracy, alleging that 20 out of its 35 members consist of student leaders and heads of select CIOs like the UJC, Honor and University Guides, while only 15 are randomly selected by lottery. In the tradition of democracy and meritocracy, it argued, the Committee should either increase the number of random seats, or democratize the process in its entirety.