VIO | Blog Row

With the UC now renamed the Sadler Center, one wonders whether or not, in due time, the UC Terrace will become known as the Sadler Terrace. I would certainly hope that it does. I respect and admire Mr. Sadler, and believe him to be a true friend of student liberty. Just as the terrace is the central hub of campus, Sam Sadler has acted as the administrative heart that has kept campus running smoothly for years. What a dishonor to Mr. Sadler’s long and admirable legacy of defending and promoting campus free speech it would be if the administration maintained the current College policy of disallowing students to distribute literature on the terrace.

As readers of The Informer may already know, the College administration prohibits the distribution of any literature, political or otherwise, on the UC Terrace. In no way is a blanket prohibition of distribution a reasonable time, place, or manner restriction. I am aghast at the thought of a place named after such an ardent defender of student rights being subjected to excessive rules that stifle student speech. The Sadler Terrace a place of censorship? Unthinkable.

I implore the administration to pay homage to Mr. Sadler’s legacy and revise the rules accordingly.

This past Thursday, my sister graduated from high school. It was certainly a momentous occasion. Those 487 graduating senior — dressed in their caps and gowns, lined up rank and file in the gymnasium to receive their diplomas — reminded me, not so subtly, of my own departure some three years ago.

The graduation speaker, whose daughter happened to be in my sister’s graduating class, was a United States ambassador appointed by President Bush. I didn’t agree with everything he had to say in his speech — the “indisputable” crisis of global climate change and Senator Barack Obama’s apparently Messianic statesmanship were two in particular — but at the core of his words were something that I think all Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, could rally behind.

He spoke passionately about the importance of appreciating America for what it was — appreciating what we, as Americans, have. Our system of government. Our rights. Our greatness. The onus of responsibility we carry as a result of that greatness. Our obligation to our country and our community, and especially to those least among us. The fact that a black man and a woman can run successful and serious bids for president of the United States. That we live in a country whose founding principle is that Nature’s God has created all men and women equally. Finally, he acknowledged and embraced the fact that all of the graduates — with their differing backgrounds, identities, personalities and character traits, of all of which they could be proud — would go on to accomplish different things in different ways.

By all accounts, a fine graduation speech. Surprisingly liberal overtones for a Bush appointee, but I wasn’t complaining. I was there for my sister, not for the speech, anyway.

It is not the ambassador’s words, though, that are the focus of this post — rather, the ironic juxtaposition of what came before and after them.

Directly prior to the speech, the James Madison Madrigals sang the National Anthem. Then the student body president asked everyone in the gymnasium to rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance — “one Nation, under God.” The James Madison band played “America the Beautiful” as an interlude between parts of the graduation ceremony.

Then the speech.

And then, the Madrigals performed one more musical piece for the evening — John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Lyrics follow below:

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace [...]

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

Graduates of the World, Unite!

In all seriousness, I can think of few poorer song selections for a graduation ceremony — atheistic, socialist bilge isn’t what one normally expects at these programs. And ironically, the song came on the heels of words and music whose main focus is in direct opposition to the very views Mr. Lennon was trying to espouse and engender. It seems to me that, after the Pledge, the National Anthem, etc., we then are encouraging our new young adults to laud, with thoughtful, self-righteous conviction, the glories of a Godless, communistic existence. All predicated, of course, on the fallacy that religion, a hard-working, capitalistic society and a cause worth fighting and dying for — eg, America, democracy, religious freedom, equality — are clearly the reason for all the world’s problems. Oh, and I’m sure they caused global warming, too.

Mr. Lennon’s admittedly melodic utterances calls for an existence impossible to actually achieve. And I am left wondering — no, imagining — why my sister and her 486 peers were given a horrifically depressing, but, thankfully, erroneous outlook on life at their ceremony. I find it hard to believe that, given the Beatles’ and Mr. Lennon’s otherwise first-rate musical output, no better song — or at least one less politically charged — could be chosen.

So, then, why was “Imagine” chosen? Whatever the reason, I hope that the graduates walked off the stage with their diploma and into the beginnings of the real world more focused on the hopeful, positive message of the ambassador than on the positively frightening prospect of the world Mr. Lennon Imagined.

[NCF]

Welcome to blog row on The Virginia Informer Online.

Currently we have three blogs lined up: The Burg Also Rises (TBAR), Make No Law (MNL, authored by Braum Katz (’10)), and Political Aurora (PA, authored by Informer Executive Editor Alex Mayer (’09)). We hope to be adding an SA blog — to rival, of course, Not David Husband — as well as a law school blog in the near future.

For those of you who were familiar, TBAR was my personal blog that I started, incidentally, just before the Nichol controversy last semester. As a result, I spent an unexpectedly large amount of time typing away — when the controversy died down, things started getting quiet again on campus and, of course, when finals kicked in, my blogging eventually petered out completely. Here, though, it will be reincarnated into an at-least weekly column that I will eventually pass on to VIO’s next editor in chief after I graduate next spring.

MNL is going to be The Informer’s student rights blog, written by Braum Katz. Mr. Katz was just named the College’s secretary of student rights, and has also done a tremendous amount of work with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The Informer also ran a front-page story on Mr. Katz for our last issue of the 2007-2008 academic year.

Mr. Mayer’s blog, Political Aurora, touches on subjects that are typically beyond The Informer’s realm in our print edition. It has more to do with national politics and goings-on, including foreign affairs, the presidential election and other larger, national issues that The Informer does not cover. By bringing PA onto VIO, I hope to broaden our opinion pages and perhaps even elevate the discussion of topics not generally covered by regular campus media — we shall see if this actually comes to fruition over the next few months, particularly with the election closing in.

Remember to check VIO often to get the latest in common sense opinion at the College of William and Mary.

[NCF]

Sometime in March of this past year, after the Board of Visitors had braved a hostile student body and an utterly vitriolic faculty, after TribeUnited and Wrengateblog ceased to be, and William and Mary took a long overdue siesta — spring break had come and gone, and somewhere on the beaches of Cancun or the restful hammocks of Northern Virginia, students departed with the woes of the Nichol resignation, the Wren Cross and the sex workers. Our ancient and pristine university had been thrown into the midst a raging culture war, but the battle appeared to be winding down. Although the scars of this particular episode in our College’s history are certainly real and raw, they have already begun to heal, and to heal quickly. The lasting legacy of Nicholgate, I believe, will not bring about division, but consensus. For a fleeting moment in January, students from all ends of the political spectrum became aware of the staggering implications of the first amendment. The concept of “student rights” ceased to be a simple abstraction and took on a tangible and highly visible form. In a moment of profound consensus during a time of marked division, the student body seemingly agreed collectively that unrestricted free speech ought to be foundational at the College of William and Mary.

Make No Law (MNL) is devoted to continuing the conversation on the status and future of student rights at the College. My writings are all based on the assumption that the College and student body is truly healthiest when permitted to engage in a free and open debate of ideas. No greater authority than the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized the role of universities as the intellectual nexus of our society when they affirmed that “given the important purpose of public education and the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment, universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition.”

As deeply rooted as our university is in the American republican tradition, we have a significant amount of work to do to ensure that we live up to the ideals of the Constitution. We currently have provisions in our student code of conduct that are so repressive to student speech that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has rated our school a “red light school,” the lowest of all ratings, in regards to our free speech policy. In the coming months, I will blogging about the most egregious College policies regarding student speech, concealed carry on campus, religious freedom, freedom of press, due process, and any other student rights issues under the sun.

My hope for this blog is that it will engage you not only in a discussion on the legal implications of student rights, but also the moral imperatives that such freedom and liberty entails. In this day and age, “freedom” and “liberty” are perhaps the most tortured buzzword in the English language. Let’s see if in the next couple of months you and I, through discussion and debate, can get a better grip of what exactly these concepts entail, and the ways we can ensure that they thrive at the alma mater of Jefferson and Marshall.