Last Friday, April 16, the first April Open House program foradmitted students took place. During the morning opening eventswhen Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin and President Bacow spoke,members of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) organizationdecided to exhibit their views in a rather unexpected manner.
Before the president's speech, these students assembled on stageand one of the SLAM members spoke about how the TuftsAdministration "targets minorities" by not providing adequatebenefits for Tufts janitors. Although the SLAM organization hadgood intentions, their approach was absolutely inappropriate,illogical, and impolite.
It is clear that SLAM has been working hard for many months toreceive a response from the Tufts administration regarding the payand benefits of janitors for the university. Unfortunately, notreceiving a response has caused anger and frustration and it seemsthat out of these negative feelings, they have targeted analternate group: admitted students.
SLAM members should understand the fact that there are alsostudents in other organizations on campus who feel strongly about acause and put in a tremendous amount of work to support it. Studentoutreach volunteers of the April Open House Executive Board havebeen working for the past three months to plan the events of AprilOpen House. These are equally-motivated students who work towardssharing their experiences at Tufts with admitted and prospectivestudents. By "barging in" and interrupting the morning program,SLAM members have disrespected that hard work by not only beingrude by interrupting, but by also forcing their views upon anaudience that truly does not have a place in the aspect of Tuftsthat they are trying to change. If SLAM members wanted to portrayto campus visitors what they are "fighting" for, they could haveused other, less invasive methods.
As an April Open House Executive Board member and also asignatory of the recent petition written by SLAM, I am quitedisappointed with the way that the members of the organization havehandled themselves. Although SLAM members are frustrated, perhapsthey should reevaluate their methods of portrayal, not target aninappropriate audience, and most importantly, not bedisrespectful.
Shervin Dhanani
LA '07
