Dear Editor,
Regarding the op-ed "Beyond the posters" that appeared in the Dec. 6 issue of the Daily: While this op-ed generally lacked substantive proof of any of the authors' allegations, a few things were particularly egregious and merit further inspection.
First, the op-ed's explicit condemnation of The Primary Source is completely unjustified and serves only to reveal the authors' hypocrisy; if tolerance is their ultimate goal -- as they say, "making this campus more of a community and a safe and warm place for all" -- then singling out students and student groups is completely counteractive.
Additionally, the incident to which they refer happened in 2006 -- before they were at Tufts, before I was at Tufts and when current Tufts freshmen were freshmen in high school. Their reflexive attack on the magazine shows that, despite their baseless claims to the contrary, racist acts are actually very infrequent on campus -- only one highly publicized racist act has been perpetrated by an individual in the last four years, and that was the isolated act of a drunk individual.
Plus, the carol had nothing to do with the wrench incident, yet another fact that seems to elude the authors. The carol was about affirmative action, not about criminal activities, innate racism, "three strikes" laws or anything mentioned in the op-ed.
While no one opposes the idea that Tufts should be a tolerant place, the authors leave no room for disagreement. And most people will disagree -- Guarano and Smith's paucity of examples of Tufts' racism only shows that Tufts is actually pretty tolerant. I urge the authors to consider these basic facts when attempting to promote discussion.
Sincerely,
Alison Meyer
Editor-in-Chief, The Primary Source
Class of 2011
