Shuttle article exemplifies WU student elitism
Dear Editor:
I was appalled at the Feb. 27 op-ed by Jeff Stepp (“Shuttle system puts students at risk”). Jeff’s distaste for the greater St. Louis community is painfully obvious, and is a textbook example of a dysfunctional town-gown relationship. If the Wash. U. community ever wonders why they seem to be so universally disliked around this city, they can take a close look at Jeff’s column and the ample naivete within. Really, I just need to cut and paste this line to sum up most of the absurdity: “What about criminals using the shuttle as a way to get access to students, or as a getaway?” Apparently, he thinks that our shuttle drivers have no common sense or observational skills.
I also have to point out that Jeff’s idea that the Metrolink will bring more crime to the Wash. U. area is exactly the excuse that the residents of St. Charles used to block the extension to their city. The racism and classism here is barely concealed: Jeff Stepp is afraid of the poorer, black residents of the city who ride public transportation. God forbid they ride our shuttles or set foot in the hallowed halls of our elite educational institution! On a more personal note, I have caught the shuttle on numerous occasions to and from my old apartment in the West End, and the driver always checked my I.D. The only community members that I ever saw on the shuttle were a young mother and her daughter (who was being dropped off at the New City school), and some young men riding between bus stops. I have never been harassed or felt threatened by my neighbors or other riders on the Metrolink, and I am proud to be a St. Louis City resident. It is pieces like Jeff Stepp’s that make me ashamed to be affiliated with Wash. U.
Alissa Nelson
Staff, Biology Department
Main campus should remain ‘Hilltop’
Dear Editor:
Like many other students, my first reaction on hearing that Hilltop Campus would be renamed Danforth Campus was “What?!” Superficially, the name change seems like another one of our University’s strange but benign decisions – like the decision to put an orb and a pyramid at the underpass. But it also sets an unwelcome precedent.
If there is anyone alive who deserves to have Hilltop Campus named after him it is William Danforth. I do not debate Danforth’s worthiness as a leader and philanthropist, which Chancellor Wrighton outlined in his Feb. 23 letter announcing the name change. Rather, I believe that it is wrong to name a Wash. U. campus after a person.
Naming residence halls, facilities and scholarships after people who have given time or money to the University makes sense, but naming an entire campus after someone elevates that person above all other donors. A facility named after a person or company says “I exist because of this entity’s donation to the University.” Hilltop Campus exists because many entities collaborated and donated their combined resources to the University.
While William Danforth may have given more time and more money to Wash. U. than anyone else, his contributions were no more or less crucial to the University’s growth than those of other donors. William Greenleaf Eliot, our University’s founder (and who, like Danforth, has a residence hall and a scholarship named after him) understood this, which is why his first act as third chancellor of Eliot Seminary was to change the name to Washington University in St. Louis. There are ways to honor William Danforth that do not corrupt Eliot’s legacy or diminish the value of other donors’ contributions. Hilltop Campus should remain Hilltop Campus.
Benjamin Kay
Class of 2008
Conference attendees not all present by choice
Dear Editor:
In his article, “In protest of the protesters,” Bill Maas uses a basic libertarian argument. The people who attended the ex-gay conference, Love Won Out, did so by choice, so the organizers of the conference are doing nothing wrong, however deceptive and damaging their program may be. Let the buyer beware. While I don’t agree with this logic, I’m sure that a debate over it will get absolutely nowhere, so I won’t argue this point. Maas is wrong, however, that everyone who attended did so by choice.
I was there at the protest, and I saw the parents who forced their 16- and 17-year-old kids to attend. These kids did not want to be there – later, after I left, one of them even snuck out of the conference, picked up a sign, and joined the protest, until his father came and dragged him back inside. Some parents panic when they find out that their children are gay and bring them to these groups, where they hear the identities that they are just beginning to discover labeled as diseases. These parents most likely know nothing about the gay community save what they’ve heard from conservative groups like this, who say that life as a member of it is dark and loveless, which is not true. But then they heard somewhere that the ex-gay movement was an effective “cure,” which is also not true, but they’re willing to believe.
Parental authority is another point of contention, but surely parents should at least be aware of all the facts before they force their kids into a program that, according to its own literature, has only a 30 percent success rate, and that, according to the consensus of both the medical and psychological communities, does more harm than good. The GLBT community is not trying to tell people what to do with their lives. We just want people to know what they’re getting themselves into with these groups, or, worse, what they’re forcing their kids into.
Jeff Binder
Class of 2007
Be careful of your actions; STDS don’t discriminate
Dear Editor:
Re: hannah draper’s response
I appreciate your response to my article. You basically say that undergraduates live in a limbo between childhood and true adulthood and that should be an excuse for enjoying this ill-defined place.
My response is a story and two morals. My brother-in-law’s sister died this weekend in a car wreck along with one of her sons. She always joked about not wearing seat belts and now the consequences of her decisions have been realized. Her boyfriend who was buckled in was not hurt.
Moral one: Limbo or not, be prepared to reap the consequences of your actions. No excuses and no help from family to pull you out. The “laws” of physics and biology are not suspended for undergrads. STD’s don’t discriminate.
Moral two: Your decisions will impact others. The woman who died left an injured son, a grieving mother and brother, and a devastated family. Decisions made in college can and will impact others. No one can escape the ripple effect of their decisions on their families, friends, future mates, and children.
David Bauman
Graduate student