EDITOR'S NOTE: On May 2, President Bacow sent an e-mail to the student body concerning an alleged hate crime. The following day, there was an anti-hate rally which addressed the incident (see page 3). Below is a response to President Bacow's e-mail from a Tufts student.
President Bacow,
Thank you for your words. I value your concern for the safety and well-being of all members of the Tufts community. I also value your dedication to developing the Tufts endowment, and I respect the time and energy you put into meeting with trustees like the one you saw this afternoon. I'm sure you heard what a powerful event the rally this afternoon was. Students, deans and faculty spoke about the importance of modeling global attitudes here on campus. You would have been proud.
Among the most passionate speeches we heard was that of a professor in the history department whose name I didn't recognize. He echoed statements that had already been made, statements about silence not meaning neutrality; about the importance of taking responsibility for what's going on around us. What sent ralliers into an enthusiastic roar, however, was when he shouted: "You need to raise your voices and tell the grown-ups who think they rule this school-" well, he was drowned out by cheers at that point, but I gather it was something along the lines of "to take action."
The fact of the matter is, President Bacow, that you DO control Tufts. The students have the power to yell and write and fight and learn, but only the administration has the power to punish the perpetrators. You can punish them in a thoughtful way, in a way that forces them to think about what they have done while letting the rest of us-many of us, if the past is any indication, capable of committing similar crimes in the future-see what will happen if we do so.
In the future, I hope to proudly donate to an alma mater whose administration is invested in understanding and protecting the health and safety of our diverse world. I can safely say, however, that I will be MUCH prouder to donate to a school whose administration is equally invested in protecting the health and safety of its own students against crimes of hate and ignorance.
Hilary Lustick, Class of 2005
