Editor Trevor Drummond shares his experiences from the 3-day event.

At 110 miles per hour, life’s little troubles are subdued to the less-than-quiet reality that the slightest angular readjustment of a thermoplastic wheel piloting a late model cherry Ford Contour could at best lead to an accident, and at worst lead to death.

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There is a silent conflict among us. Students, their representative organizations, and the administration of Lehigh University are engaged in a semantically charged debate concerning the role of the school in moderating, mediating, and sponsoring political awareness activities.

Outside Influence

When Students for Obama, a non-Senate recognized organization, opted to bring Gray’s Anatomy actress Kate Walsh to the Rathbone dining facility, the toes had proverbially tested the water. Rathbone management expressed that since Ms. Walsh was not paid, and would draw people into Dining Services’ facilities, that no regulations had been violated. Consequently, whether advertently or otherwise, Students for Obama insulated itself slightly, as the Wood Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sodexho, manages Rathbone. As Sodexho’s contract likely also involves liability issues concerning the facility in question, the school made a clean break.

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Does one’s partisan biases have root in their quasi-predestined role in higher education? That is to say, do Lehigh’s conservative students tend to accept the so-called social inequalities that Lehigh’s left-leaning students often cite within the institution itself? Does the role of Lehigh, as a producer of high-grossing graduates, work to season a new-bred upper class, and if so, should we feel guilty about our role within said system?

The role of an elite university in moderating its concessional perks has long been a matter of contention in higher academia. No doubt, as the presupposed 35th best university in the nation, Lehigh ranks among the top schools for graduate performance and undergraduate selectivity – two rational hallmarks of a quality institution. Nonetheless, students at Lehigh are nearly wholly unaware of how their experience truly correlates with their potential experience at another, more “mainstream” university with significantly higher matriculation rates, (such as Penn State, et cetera). That is to say, we know what we live because we live it.

Nevertheless, transfer students often provide a fairly accurate litmus test as to how the whole-package university experience can comparatively be measured against another institution of higher education. Having spoken with several transfers with respect to their past and present experiences in a collegiate setting, it has come to my attention that the hypotheses regarding a university’s role in society closely toe the line with the inorganic class conflict that arises within the university’s system itself. How the students cope with the Lehigh microcosm largely impacts their partisan biases beyond their societal role.

Consider, for a moment, what the Lehigh Experience means for you, dear reader. As freshmen, you have emphasis placed on the celebration of your accomplishments thus far, with a set tone as to what the odds of your successful completion of Lehigh really mean. The societal ramifications of a Lehigh degree are subject to their own brand of institutional research, provided by Career Services, who has ensured that, upon graduation, you will likely enter your field with advantages. Your work at Lehigh is complementary both to your intellect and your resume.

Notwithstanding, tomorrow’s future leaders are entitled to top-notch facilities. Despite the persistent culture of cynicism present both in this news journal, and Lehigh’s official student news bi-weekly, The Brown & White, where students such as myself find everything and anything to be detestably frustrating, in the grand scheme of things, life isn’t so bad. We have teams of individuals at beck and call, renovating and repairing facilities, holding our hand through the job search and application process, feeding us in what fifty years ago would be an unimaginable variety, and entertaining us with a roster of speakers, presenters, performances, and other options for making the most of ones’ time. There are, in fact, so many simultaneous activities taking place on Lehigh’s campus that attending and digesting every one is beyond impossible.

Likewise, in the vein of other elite universities, Lehigh trains its students that second chances, extensions, and character-based social promotion are to be expected. This strongly correlates with the ambition-driven young upwardly-mobile professional lifestyle that so many of Lehigh’s graduates will enter. The nature of the oft-referred “good-old-boy” system retains some occasional pull in the course of completion with a smattering of Lehigh students. To establish some degree of reference for this posited educational aristocracy, one may reference The Chronicle of Higher Education – an article entitled “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” by William Deresiewicz.

So what exactly does this have to do with partisan bias? General tenets of all vintages of conservatism tend to disregard social inequality, believing it to be a product of the individual, not the system. Consequently, more “progressive,” or liberal, students tend to believe that the social environment largely impacts individuals, and that the environment is ultimately culpable. (Often, the left will attack environments made of people, such as corporations, in a quixotic move meant to confuse those who have forgotten the simple fact that corporations are ultimately an amalgam of hard-working people.)

These considerations at hand, a conservative student would turn a blind eye to accusations of social inequality on the basis of sexual, gender, or racial diversity as these issues are little impacted by the actions of those who raise their voices. That is to say, while student activist groups make lots of noise, the informed students know that real progress is made behind closed doors, not outside locked ones, and that topical band-aid solutions are intended to placate the left for the purpose of perpetuating that which takes place behind the proverbial scenes.

All the same, a left-leaning student would have an inherent sense of guilt about their position. Feeling that the environment is above the student (likely true), rather than adapting to the environment for self-improvement, the student will work to bring the environment down to their presupposed level, by working towards the windmill of social justice, stabbing at it with pitchforks while the rest of us create tangible progress.

To better illustrate the point at hand, two scenarios will be painted. The vignette with whom the readers’ sympathies lie likely mirrors their own social outlook, and consequently, their political bias.

Consider Student Alex. Alex sees success as a measure of personal flexibility; to which end, fiscal liquidity and personal networked mobility hold high regard. Regardless of the means from which Alex came, or the secondary school from which Alex graduated, s/he now comes to Lehigh equipped with the normative roster of extracurricular activities, awards, and advanced placement credit. Nothing over the top, nothing lacking – your average student.

Alex is proud that Lehigh offers such expansive facilities, and is working to build new ones. Alex splits his/her time between schoolwork, occasional nightlife, and a healthy balance of extracurricular activities, one or two of which s/he might take an executive board role in during junior or senior year. Leadership, stability, and pragmatism dominate Alex’s mindset, and while s/he regularly hears student complaints about this and that, Alex realizes that there are bigger things to worry about – namely, his/her future.

Consider Student Pat. Pat, like Alex, came from the same normative distribution of means and secondary education. Pat also holds the median in advanced placement credit, awards, and other post-secondary fodder that pads the application and makes students attractive to the school of their choice. Pat, like Alex, is also involved in his/her organizations. However, rather than leadership, Pat wants the greater good of the group to come first – namely, awareness.

Pat is frustrated that schools like Lehigh have such large endowments, yet continue to offer marginal financial aid packages to so-called disenfranchised students, such as ethnic minorities. Pat volunteers his/her time in student activist groups, such as The Rainbow Room, Break the Silence, the Progressive Student Alliance and The Women’s Center. Pat’s focus is less on his/her degree, less on his/her resume credentials, and more on the very act of learning itself. Pat puts the acquisition and accessibility of knowledge on the forefront. Pat considers Alex to be a “tool.”

Pat and Alex concurrently attend Lehigh. Both have their future planned – one craves success in the more grand-narrative sense of the term, (fiscal and social liquidity), while the other, frustrated by the nature of Lehigh’s push for “useful graduates,” seeks the elimination of so-called social injustices to ultimately improve his/her own weakened sense of self worth. One loves the school for what it is, and one loves the school for what s/he wants it to be.

The case seems to be that everyone is aware of the underlying fabric of what makes Lehigh University. A large segment of students feel a sense of guilt for what they have, and occasionally immerse themselves in short-term experiential forms of torture under the banner of social “awareness,” such as sleeping on the lawn of the University Center, on a cardboard box, to mimic a highly specific part of homelessness. Another segment looks at these students, understands the value in what they do, but is also aware of the economic and social ironies that undermine such events, (like the economic fact that most homeless are undereducated).

Members of that second segment, the Alexes of Lehigh, aren’t unaware of so-called economic and social inequalities – they just don’t care to fix them at this juncture in their life. They see their own upwardly-mobile career path as an eventual means to an end, despite the catcalls from the socially proactive students that Lehigh undergraduates must spread “awareness” to the unenlightened. In short, those who spread awareness aren’t creating new waves among anyone other than themselves. Those who criticize the yuppies for being so self-absorbed are, in a sense, the most self-absorbed of all insofar as they create “awareness” exclusively for each other on a visceral audio/visual daily experience.

To be fair, the Pats of Lehigh are correct in their assumption that the Alexes of Lehigh don’t always learn for the sake of learning, and absorb education in a purely pragmatic fashion. Likewise, so many of the Alexes have grown overly comfortable in their launch vehicle that they fail to watch the machinations of the world during their trajectory to success. It is an unfortunate byproduct that so many who are successful then wish to hoard their success, rather than share it with the next generation.

In conclusion, it may be proposed that the political partisan biases of Lehigh students may tie closely to their complacency with the nature of Lehigh as a prestigious academic institution. In either case, the sense and sensibilities of either contingent, (the Pats and Alexes) tend to often overlook each other’s points of view. In doing so, they remove the most important, unilateral component of a college education. That is, the free and open exchange of ideas.

“I found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race,” states Senator Barack Obama in his book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Contrary to what the media will have you believe, contrary to what your fellow students may tell you, and contrary to the pervasive attitude that has swept the country like muggings in a fog, Barack Obama represents the collective embodiment of radical left ideas, and his ascension to power representative of underlying currents of American racism.

Americans, sadly, have little hope for Black America. This is a double-edged sword, covered extensively throughout many other works, some of which I have authored. Thanks to the discussion dementia caused by the so-called political correctness revolution that former President Jimmy Carter began, and furthered throughout the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton administrations, people fear one another. Black Americans and White Americans continue to harbor discussions of race in closed, contained spaces — a family table, a local bar, a union meeting, or a church festival. These spaces remain segregated, such that the development of ideas only polarizes the respective demographics further from any reconciliation of 150 years of name-calling and mutually terroristic treatment of one another.

The climate for true discussion of true change, something that will be built upon in later statements in this article, has created a situation that is far from calm. This article does not concern itself with this phenomenon in its entirety, however. This article intends to place Senator Obama in a fair light, one that is untainted by racial expectations, and bolstered by facts about colorless issues, such as voting records, truthfulness of campaign themes and statements made, and projections about where a presupposed Obama administration could potentially position the great American global machine.

Hope & Change — a volatile pair of buzzwords that Senator Obama has tossed about like confetti in a ticker-tape parade. Obama claims that he represents a fresh departure from Washingtonian institutions such as lobbyist influence, corporate interest groups, and soft money. Unfortunately, much of this rhetoric is baseless.

Obama has a long-standing relationship with FBI-indicted extortionist Antonin Rezko, who has raised more than $168,000 for Senator Obama’s campaign. Rezko also successfully petitioned Obama to obtain more than $14 million dollars in federal funding for apartments for senior citizens, himself receiving $855,000 in “development fees.” Obama falsely claims he has no knowledge of Rezko, though the Chicago Sun-Times has stacks of paperwork detailing the aforementioned claims, in addition to hundreds of others demonstrating a long-term you-scratch-my-back sort of relationship between Rezko and Senator Obama.1

Obama claimed, during a taping of Meet the Press on Jan. 22, 2006 that he believed the root of all evil in politics is the money of lobbyists.

I think the problem of money in politics is bipartisan. I think that all of us who are involved in the political process have to be concerned about the enormous sums of money that have to be raised in order to run campaigns, how that money’s raised, and at least the appearance of impropriety and the potential access that’s given to those who are contributing. That’s a general problem with our politics. The specific problem of inviting lobbyists in who have bundled huge sums of money to write legislation, having the oil and gas companies come in to write energy legislation, having drug companies come in and write the Medicare prescription drug bill-which we now see is not working for our seniors-those are very particular problems of this administration and this Congress. And I think Jack Abramoff and the K Street Project, that whole thing is a very particular Republican sin. 2

Yet Obama is no stranger to sketchy contributions. The Capital Eye reported that, “[a]ccording to the Center for Responsive Politics, 14 of Obama’s top 20 contributors employed lobbyists this year, spending a total of $16.2 million to influence the federal government in the first six months of 2007.” Likewise, Obama’s top three campaign contributors spent more than $8 million dollars lobbying congress in 2007.3

It would seem that the “sins” of the Republican Party have rubbed off on the Senator. However, he seems to be in a league of his own when it comes to his voting record. In January of 2008, The National Journal ranked legislators by their voting records, and taking the #1 spot as most liberal senator was none other than Sen. Obama.4 Interesting, considering that Obama remarked that:

“There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America – there’s the United States of America.”5

Despite these rather dubious claims to bipartisanship, it is striking that the Senator’s voting record is so far left, considering that he rarely votes at all. Throughout February, Obama abstained from 25 of 30 votes.6 Overall, on key votes concerning welfare and healthcare, Obama abstained from 4 of 6 key issues. On issues concerning Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA courts, Obama abstained on 50% of the key votes.7

On seven key votes for healthcare, Obama voted aye for multiple amendments to the Medicare program for senior citizens.7 Despite this alarming turnout for an otherwise often-absent Senator, Obama has outright waffled on the issue of socialized medicine. (Note that single-payer healthcare is a Washington euphemism for socialized medicine.) Observe two quotes:

“I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. That’s what I’d like to see.”

Five Years Later:

“I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer (healthcare).8

In 2004, Senator Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an “absolute obligation to remain in Iraq,” and he furthered this point of view by telling the Christian Science Monitor that same year that “the failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster, and that it would dishonor those who have died serving, to bring the military out of Iraq abruptly.” Yet, only weeks ago, he claimed that he would have left Iraq, “yesterday.”10

In light of the bevy of evidence extant to discredit the junior Senator, whose record demonstrates an oscillatory commitment to liberal ideals, with no tolerance for more conservative ones (Obama voted nay on the Protection of Marriage Act, and several spending caps, along with nay on a proposal to prevent riders, or extra legislation commonly known as pork), Obama is a risk to the general welfare of a free, capitalistic state. His inability to set his mind to anything is offset in the public domain by his ability to leverage speechwriter Jon Favreau’s remarkably transparent and vague voice of old-line reason and undeniable tenets of how America should be, despite how Obama plans to shape it.

The audacity of hope, indeed. And, if Barack Obama represents the reincarnation of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, then I suppose that his brother will be acquitted of second-degree murder after drunkenly driving a female aide off of a bridge. Vacations will be spent with cousins who bludgeon to death a fifteen-year-old girl, using only a six-iron. He will appoint the next Robert McNamera, who will begin a war more complicated and deadly than Iraq could ever be, open a World’s Fair without European Sanction because, of course, we must restore international credibility, and he may attempt to invade Cuba. He will then die young enough for people to forget about his affairs and poor decision-making, and he will forever be enshrined in the public eye.10

Barack Obama is no Kennedy — one can only hope that his relatively clean personal life, which has primarily been marred by the affair concerning Pastor Jeremiah Wright (which I will not build upon, in my commitment to remove race from the equation), will not ever reach that of a Ted Kennedy or a Robert Skakel. However, Obama shares a tie with the late President: a thin veil of popularity overshadows his missteps, and his political career is peppered with contradictions. Obama’s presidential candidacy is built on the idea that he can transcend partisan politics, yet the evidence clearly cites the contrary. He is neither less liberal nor less corrupt, than John Edwards (with the blood of thousands of dead mothers on his hands, thanks to his cesarean-section lawsuits, which largely funded his campaign for President) or Hillary Clinton (with her sketchy real-estate dealings, long-rumored plot to overthrow private medicine, and scads of personal hypocrisy of her own).

Now, we return to my initial postulation concerning race. I have attempted to evaluate Obama without regard to his race or religion (whatever it may be, today). However, the clear logical conclusions that I have drawn have not yet descended upon the American body politick, critically due to media inattention. Barack is relatively untouchable, because White America believes that his eloquence is special; a Black man who speaks without the gritty racism of the late Jesse Jackson, or the call to action of former Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, or all-around crackpot Maulana Karenga — individuals that Americans are used to experiencing. It is true that Black America needs a role model (just as White America needs some new role models) and Barack fits the bill.

My point of contention here is that Obama is running for the highest office in the free world, on a far-left platform marked by the same conflicts of interest and same sins of his fellow candidates, making him both equally corrupt and outlandishly liberal — a dangerous combination. I personally would have liked to see Condoleezza Rice seek the oval office on the Republican ticket, though not because of her gender or race. America needs a qualified, restrained individual, who won’t redistribute my income, appoint judges who interpret constitutionality of things never meant to be debated, or attend church with a racist Marxist who may influence his opinion. This is something that I believe Barack H. Obama does not, nor cannot espouse, when it comes to the future of America.

References

(1)     Free Republic Online: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1960154/replies?c=98

(2)     Notable Quotes: http://www.notable-quotes.com/o/obama_barack_iii.html

(3)     Democrats for Hillary-Stop Obama: http://www.stop-obama.org/?p=449

(4)     http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

(5)     Quotes Online: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/barack_obama.html

(6)     Open Congress: http://www.opencongress.org/people/show/400629_barack_obama

(7)     VoteSmart.org: http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490

(8)     Freedom’s Enemies citations to AFL/CIO debate & Jan 21st Democratic Debate

(9)     New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.html

(10)     Talk given by Trevor J. Drummond on April 7, 2008

Sam Wechsler, ’08, is a soft-spoken person. You’d be surprised to learn that, at his command, is an organization that I have previously described as being the most dangerous near-paramilitary group on campus, the Progressive Student Alliance. The PSA, known for their occasionally fringe-level activism, is planning to march a mock wooden coffin from the Maginnes political science building to the Stabler Observation Tower at Iacocca Hall, to symbolize the cumulative American and Iraqi death toll, on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Naturally, I was drawn to such a story. A coffin? Clearly, the symbolism made sense, but why even bother? Protests, like many long-standing traditions of the American left, have a habit of getting out of hand. Motives start innocently enough, but the consequences are what make front-page news. My concern centers around the fact that the consequences aren’t typically rally cries of support or newfound unity in a cause. Rather, someone typically gets hit with too much tear gas, or the fire hose pressure is a bit too high, and someone screams another classic battle cry of the militant left, hate crime!

What I found to be most refreshing was Wechsler’s attitude toward the whole affair. Rather than galvanizing himself in a position, donning the classic pin collection of upside-down American flags and other anti-establishment paraphernalia, and calling for direct and immediate action, he stated that, “Things take time. Up and out might not be the best strategy for pulling out of Iraq. Ending a war takes time, beginning a war takes time. What our goal is is to symbolize casualties that happened throughout the occupation of Iraq.”

So, why bother with the coffin? “It’s not like it’s completely like, gory. I don’t think it would be that shocking. It’s to bring back awareness,” said Wechsler. “…when people see the actions of others doing things like this, then they may want to participate in it themselves. And eventually you …get more people to participate, and it’s kind of a snowball effect, and that’ll carry – it can carry, all the way to the White House or Washington or whatever,” said Wechsler.

Aside from my immediate apprehension with regard to the notion of anything the left produces “snowballing,” the truth is that a coffin is nothing that the generation of overtly sexualized music and blood-smeared profane television and film couldn’t handle.

Though, if it were merely the act of a funeral procession that concerned me, there would be very little to be concerned about at all. The left would be supportive, and the right would be critical, and neither would likely incur any pragmatic visionary degree of change. Rather, such an act would merely bolster the confidences of both sides of whatever factor of the Iraq war is brought to question.

While I’d like to believe that such a march could remain peaceful, factors that Wechsler clarified lead me to muse otherwise. “We haven’t really planned dress or chants. That might happen; that might not happen. I don’t know,” said Wechsler. Such planned facets could drastically alter the nature of such an event, if properly leveraged. Yet again, my fear of discreet PSA uprising was quelled, when I began to draw comparisons to the ill-fated Diversity Signs project, which was deployed onto the lawn of the University Center last spring.

These signs, with phrases such as, “She looks like a whore,” and “You reek of Jew,” aside from crafting new bigotry that I never believed to be possible (how does one “reek” of Jew?), really only highlighted the overemphasis on false diversity that certain members of the community have been trying to push on the student body for several years now. Likewise, such a project was visually offensive, and likely distraught the visitors, one of which remarked that such signs only heighten the likelihood of latent anti-Semitism.

Said Wechsler, “They certainly invoke thought, and that’s one of our goals – to invoke thought in a person. They would probably be about as effective, however, we’re not writing things like ‘whore’ or ‘Jew,’” I followed up with the obvious: was he offended? “I was not offended by them, no,” noted Wechsler. “It depends on the people that are coming it see it, there are people who might be offended, and there are those who might think it’s funny. I would not support it if someone was seriously offended by it. If there were people that would go to whoever created it, and [the protesting group] kept it up, I would not support that. However, if people just see it and think it’s interesting and it provokes thought, then I think that it may be appropriate to do something like that. So, that’s – I guess there’s a thin line there.”

After speaking with Wechsler, I’ve come to the conclusion that he, like his organization, remains classically left of center. Motives or beliefs about the end of the Iraq War aside, his use of the verb “occupation” to describe the U.S. military presence in Iraq is disheartening and subjective. Likewise, I still cannot completely comprehend the logic of marching around campus with a coffin – I see it as being gently playful, almost absurd. It’s the sort of thing that one sees in bad music-television adaptations, and while I see his symbolism and his logic behind the mentality driving the coffin protest to fruition, I’m struck by the fact that students participating in this march, or witness to this march may not entirely find this demonstration very innocent, or may be offended, had they recently lost a loved one in Iraq. They may even see it as I do, and find it mildly amusing.

Protests are a holdover from the primitive student activism of the nineteen sixties. Even Wechsler agrees, stating, “A lot has changed since then, too, especially with the advent of the internet. Maybe some of those things don’t work so well.” Wechsler isn’t quick to make any draws between Vietnam and Iraq, which I find to be both admirable and intelligent, nor was he quick to exploit any of my questions for the purpose of furthering some browbeaten, oft-dismissed, debatable point of contention, such as the questions underlying the initial invasion of Iraq.

In my considerations, protests have never had a very high level of admiration. We have the God-given gifts of speech, of reason, and of basic communication skills. As a child, if you weren’t satisfied with the way that things went, and you approached your guardians, were you more successful when you articulated your grievances in a rational, calm manner, or when you threw things at them and yelled over top of them in a futile attempt to impose your will upon them?

The highest irony that I see is that liberals gush for protests because they see it as the apex of a means to an end. Yet, in reality, the large-scale government wrapped like a Christmas present in red tape and inaccessible to the common man is the very product that they seek to create. They won’t say this outright, but by undertaking the responsibilities of medicine, or law, or in the case of Pennsylvania, the liquor control board (and an entire market share monopolized with no reason), the government will consistently find a way to bungle management and alienate the aforementioned common man by their usurpation of power in a particular industry.

Furthermore, protesters often point fingers at the radical marches of the 1960s. They state that the civil rights movement would never have occurred, had protesters not marched upon Washington and Selma and Montgomery, and anywhere else that we’ve had branded on our frontal lobes by the American left during our primary school “social studies” courses. I truly do not believe that racism is overcome by demonstrations. Consider that the American Asian population has incurred much of the same denigration that the American Hispanic and African-American population has similarly encountered. Yet, we have very few examples of Asian uprisings in boroughs of New York City and otherwise. Why? I believe that this fact is explained by culture. The Asian population had it right – wait it out, let it pass, and prove the inequities of bigotry by behaving in a manner that has more, not less class than the elite who disenfranchise them.

People have a natural aversion to the appropriate channels of communication. They have predefined notions of the way the system should work, and when they encounter a single roadblock, they chalk this up to rationalize a protest. Ultimately, protests hinder progress, impede other neutral entities’ abilities to carry on their lives, and anger those whose lives are disrupted by them.

This planned protest seems manageable enough, particularly when contrasted to some of the direct activism that takes place at universities such as Columbia, Emerson, or Vassar. Yet, as stated before, it’s not the message that makes it into the news; it’s the consequences of that message. Will Lehigh embrace reason, or bury it altogether?

In a series of e-mail announcements sent to the university at-large, President Alice P. Gast has unveiled a series of councils and special interest groups, whose intentions stand to further progress for a more diverse, more ecologically conscious campus, a motive that Gast presented among her inaugural goals.

The Council for Equity and Community (CEC), the Lehigh Environmental Advisory Group (LEAG), and the Global Lehigh Advisory Committee (GLAC) represent the bureaucracy that Gast has set out to create. Vague, guided by pure populism, and I suspect a push to pad her personal curriculum vitae, Gast’s committee fetish has long term repercussions for Lehigh University, mostly in the form of high legacy costs and nonsensical parliamentary actions.

Starting with CEC, which is to be composed of “faculty, staff, undergraduates, and graduate students who have demonstrated commitment to diversity through research, teaching, work, or service,” this group automatically alienates the average Lehigh student. Rationally, most students do not “commit themselves to diversity,” as they operate under the belief that interacting with their peers in such a way that does not differentiate behavior based on race, denomination, et cetera, is business as usual. In other words, most people do not try to create a homogeneous environment by outright discriminatory means, (barring the archaic pledging processes that define our Greek Life system).

The only people who might fit the definition of being “committed to diversity through research, teaching, work, or service,” would be professors whose field of study is the very-specific, not-so-diverse area of Asian, Africana, or other cultural studies – clearly, not the type of people who might think outside of the academic space in which they reside, or students who have made a lot of white noise, preaching their messages of separatist, gratuitous wanting by means of “movements” or the editorial columns of the Brown & White. Thereby, I postulate that the only benefit that could come from such a committee would be the encapsulation of such causes of civil unrest within a restrained committee, from which the occupants could be buried in their own red tape and self-congratulatory smug.

Realistically, there is a need for Lehigh University to attract a diverse palate of candidates for its newly matriculated classes. As stated in my previous article, Diversity Doublespeak, I noted that international and minority students enhance the university experience by providing new perspectives in studies and social interactions, and allow existing students to interface with peers of unique cultures, heritages, faiths, or whatever it may be within the scope of their academic career, as preparation for their life in the diverse working world. However, by what motive do we do so? Is it fair to initiate a slew of new racial scholarships in lieu of merit-based ones, which in essence bribe persons of one race or another to come to a university that they might not otherwise care to attend? Should they choose to attend on the basis of such monies, is it fair that they should then want to impose their personal worldview (which may not be so diverse) on the existing student body?

To further this argument, consider the difference between equity and blind placation. The council’s stated purpose is equity, which is defined as being fair or impartial. Yet, based on the application criteria, how very impartial would a committee of social sciences professors and angry radical students be? Moreover, are we simply acting to placate these students by giving them the feeling of power to offset the perceived imbalance, while in actuality sending the message that the majority’s whims and wishes are subject first to a council with direct access to the President of the university? Gast’s email lends to the idea that such a council will have access to funding – something already spoken for in the diversity arena by the Multicultural Affairs committee, headed by Alta Thornton, and the Joint Multicultural Program, headed by Yaba Blay, alongside whatever fragments are left of The Movement, the Provost’s office (which spent at least five figures on the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. day), and how many more? The Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers? The Black Student Union?

The question also arises as to whom we as a university would like to attract. Do we want the Deborah Dickerson-defined Black student who represents the stereotypical, “non-job-having, middle-of-the-day malt-liquor-drinking, crotch-clutching, loud-talking brother with many neglected children born of many forgotten women?” If we are, is it fair for that individual, whose personal lifestyle choice will inevitably be aesthetically opposed to the country-club stock that so petulantly defines this university? That individual will be ostracized, and the question shifts to the blame: is it the financial aid office, which bribed this student to come to a university whose social space is diametrically opposed to his? Is it the students who will cast judgments upon this individual, not understanding where he comes from? Is it this individual’s fault, for espousing a lifestyle that defines what some consider urban detritus? Is it Bethlehem, and the environment that we somehow must be affecting, and should form some woebegone committee to rectify said ecological climate?

It’s an absurd question, but it’s a real one, and the true answer is that no one party is responsible for the failure of one culture to smoothly interface with another. All parties are guilty – the student should realize that if he’s receiving so much financial aid, many of his new peers will be well off and unadjusted to his unique situation, and the existing students who push so fervently for this “diversity” should realize that they then must accept those who they claim they want to attract. Is the solution to this problem a committee, which is composed of only the protagonists of diversity and none of it’s detractors, or objective critics such as myself? Why is this even a question? If 13% of the United States is composed of “Black” individuals, by whatever definition might be chosen, are there enough minorities to placate our university’s stilted expectations? Our numbers are fine, and this issue should have been dropped ages ago.

Likewise, there persists the fact that many international students do not feel represented on campus, despite the existence of so many committees, clubs, unions, and societies. To once again reference Diversity Doublespeak, there is a rift between Black and Hispanic students (who are born as U.S. citizens), other domestic minority students (such as Asian, Native American, European, et cetera), and international students on visa.

To briefly paraphrase a previous argument: the first group of individuals (Black and Hispanic) remains the prominent focus of our school’s diversity efforts. This is undeniable. Look at the sheer size and money spent on the King Day celebration, look at the Rap Sessions event, look at Rock for Darfur, and a consistent pattern begins to develop. I don’t see existential discussions on issues pertaining to any other domestic minorities.

International students have become the latest demographic to be woefully mangled in the diversity debate. While their on-campus presence isn’t celebrated nearly as much as specific domestic minorities (outside of the International Bazaar and a few lecture series, through the UN Coalition), their recruitment efforts have redoubled nearly as much as domestic minority initiatives. Sound attractive? Hardly – the Global Lehigh Advisory Committee presented a laundry list of expensive, irrational, excessive goals that challenge the very mission of our institution. (What happened to “practical education?”)

GLAC’s first effort is the Required International Experience (RIE). The RIE exists under the logical convolution that, on account of the positive reactions garnered from students who choose (keyword choose) to study abroad, Lehigh might as well raise tuition and force everyone to pick a country and study there for a semester. I suspect this effort has more to do with Gast being credited as some sort of pioneer in higher education for her decision to make Lehigh less affordable to the very people it says it’s committed to recruiting, with the intentions of globalizing such assumedly close-minded students such as ourselves.

While GLAC has a few positive keynotes to it, such as efforts to outright recruit more international students and the establishment of overseas “hubs” to attract both students and speakers, GLAC seems to have missed a few recitations. It states that it wants to increase international graduate students – which means more international teaching assistants. To be fair, I have had some very good experiences with foreign TAs, yet I’ve had twice as many unfortunate ones with the very same demographic. As I’ve personally noticed a large percentage of international grad students covering labs and recitations, my observations have been corroborated by several of my peers, and we’ve come to a mutual conclusion that the language barrier is a significant detriment to an intellectually enriching recitation or lab experience. The Brown & White corroborated this in their article titled Prof’s Accents Cause Confusion for Some.

Finally, the Lehigh Environmental Advisory Group stands to raise tuition and cut institutional improvements further by forcing the university to go “cutting-edge” on experimental, marginally cost-efficient, minimally cleaner, outright expensive technology. Representing a further step in Gast’s mission to bring a bit of Berkeley to Bethlehem, LEAG has direct access to the President’s office, and will likely be padded with sizable seed funding.

LEAG’s initial stage, which involves evaluating existing campus practices, will, in all fairness, accomplish something that a different committee should be evaluating: wasteful practices. While I cannot support an organization that will force costly change on the basis of marginally earth-enhancing practices, I can certainly see how an oversight committee, which evaluates waste and the most effective ways to reduce it, would be beneficial to our institution.

To most effectively synopsize the principle grievances I have with this bevy of recently established committees, it comes down to two key ideas: purpose and practice. On the former, we must look to our school’s original outset mission statement: for practical education. While it is undeniable that we live in an age where technology is dictated more by an environmental conscious than it had been in previous years, and while there are positive consequences to a truly diverse campus (not one of displaced, disgruntled “free Mumia” supporters who want to assuage what is often called “white guilt” or “liberal guilt,” in order to further leverage campus policy), and while we would like to expand our international horizons to more effectively manage the global marketplace, the fact of the matter is that these, like all other trophy committees, will do no such thing.

We then come to practice. Consider that most of these committees aren’t predicted to make any real headway for at least five years – some, longer. This allows President Gast to sit back and watch the gears turn on her grand placation scheme, designed to distract the angry minorities and radical left from pestering her with posted demands, rallies, and walkouts. Thereby, she can take on the two principal presidential roles: raise money, and impose her political and social will on this institution.

My predictions? Alice Gast has no real long-term intentions for this school. Her children, now approximately 11 and 13, will likely not attend this school. There is no conceivable reason why the valedictorian of USC Berkeley, with such extensive academic credentials, would allow her children to go to anything but a top-tier research institute. As such, she will likely step down in about five years – maybe ten, if she is presented with a more attractive university presidential offer. I base this on Gast’s inauguration – her colleagues, mostly university presidents and trustees, almost mocked Gast for her choice of residence here. The ceremony smacked of a farce – this presidency is a stepping-stone for a west-coast liberal who wants to change the world, with no thought to the possible class conflicts and other wake she may leave in tow. She’ll get to return to one of her several alma maters, take a high-level position, and forget that Bethlehem is anything but a smudge on a map.