Outrage at the Jolt postings was rightfully extensive. AAS President Ryan Park had the right idea when he condemned the behavior of the offending authors as "a clear violation of one of our college's most fundamental principles." Using language from the College's "Statement on Respect for Persons," Park wrote and posted a signed statement. Park's initial request, however, that the College identify and punish all who had made offensive posts concerned us for two reasons. First, the College should not directly involve itself in posts on the Jolt except in instances involving potential physical harm. Secondly, despite the awful nature of the posts, their authors wrote their opinions anonymously. The violation of this presumed privacy, therefore, would not be justifiable.
On Monday night, at an ASA-sponsored open forum, Park displayed both courage and good judgment when he retracted his demand for punishment. Park determined that the pursuit of the individual forum posters was not the most productive response, explaining that "the best way to counteract hate speech is with counter-speech." We couldn't agree more.
The administration has taken the best possible course of action in the matter, addressing the issue with strong words, but not strong measures. The letter to students from President Anthony Marx and Dean of Students Ben Lieber was appropriately critical of both the offensive material and of the students who expressed themselves in such a reprehensible manner. Moreover, we applaud the prudence of the administration to resist seeking punishment of those whom the community would most like to condemn.
We think that it is absolutely necessary that students, administrators, faculty and staff join together in clear denunciation of this and other types of disrespect in our community. That such insensitivity and disregard for fellow students could exist here indicates this College has a long way to go to ensure that it is, in actuality, the distinguished institution of learning and discussion that we expect it to be.