Liberal Watch

For whatever reason there was a tremendous amount of anticipation surrounding the most recent meeting of the Corporation. Prior to this year I barely knew what the Corporation was, never knew when it met, and, to be honest, thought that this is the way it should be. I cannot overemphasize that the Corporation is doing a great job running Brown and, despite what the actions of the Students for a Democratic Society would convey, that it is not running our wonderful University into the ground. I counted four different articles in the Herald about the meeting; why such anticipation? Well, SDS once again proved that they are the most radical and yet simultaneously the most irrelevant group on campus, something that is quite a feat.

In an attempt logically to understand this, I took a closer look at what it is exactly that SDS wants. According to the petition that is circulating in regard to the Corporation, there are four things that SDS wants. It wants the meetings to be open to the public, the immediate publication of minutes, the community to control the agenda, and a referendum put to the community for all major decisions.

Not only is this the least practical list of demands I have ever heard, but also many of them are foolish ideas. When it comes to the immediate publication of minutes from the meeting, it is just a bad idea. For the Corporation to function properly, there needs to be free discourse, something that would be hindered if these minutes were published. The demands only go downhill from here. In terms of the Corporation’s opening their meetings to the public, just look at the mayhem that SDS is causing outside of their meetings. What would a meeting be like if even one of those individuals attending this protest were inside? I certainly don’t want to know what this would be like.

Next comes the idea of community control over the agenda. It is clear to me that the majority of students at Brown do not care about the Corporation (despite the 1,000 plus signatures on the SDS petition), so the “community” controlling this agenda would be dominated by those already pressing the University to make these changes, specifically SDS. The important fact that is being overlooked is that students are only at Brown for four years, which gives them an incredibly short-sighted view, while members of the Corporation serve for much longer and have a long-term view. They are positioned to have a much more holistic concern for the community.

The final demand is for community referenda on all major decision. As I have mentioned in previous articles, the idea that Brown would be run like some socialist society, where all decisions need to be approved by some community consensus, is foolish. How would anything ever be accomplished? No community consensus could ever be reached that would improve Brown; it would only clog the process so that our University would come to a halt.

The plan for the SDS protest was a multi-phase one. As I understand it, the night before the meeting, two students entered University Hall shortly before the end of the work day. They then proceeded to find an empty room inside U. Hall and lock themselves inside of it. The next day, the rest of the SDS posse showed up to raise hell outside of U. Hall, bringing with them a very long ladder. The posse then used this long ladder as a rouse to distract the police who were guarding the meeting (the simple fact that the police needed to be there is a story within itself). While all this was going on, the two students inside of the building snuck down from there hiding spot and opened a door to let the rest of the posse in, shortly after which they were met by the police and escorted out of the building.

The only thing that comes to mind is, wow. There are so many different aspects of this that bother me. I am having a very difficult time wrapping my brain around what is so awful about this group of people that SDS would go to such extreme measures to try and stop them. Who knows, maybe the Corporation is secretly killing puppies inside its meeting? If that were the class, then sure, let us form a posse and break in. In my opinion, anything short of that means that SDS engaged in a complete overreaction.

The University has a very clear code of conduct for its students. In the University’s own protest code it states, “Protests or demonstrations that infringe upon the rights of others to peaceful assembly … cannot be tolerated.” The actions of those who attended the most recent protest of the Corporation meeting violated this very code that all students are supposed to conduct themselves by. The simple nature of this protest, the fact that they were attempting to stop a peaceful meeting of the Corporation, a group who has done nothing but lead this great University, is a violation and needs to be treated accordingly.

So far SDS, who was leading this protest, has only been rewarded for its antics by being upgraded to a Category Three organization, meaning it is now eligible for funding from the University and is officially linked to the University. Let us take a closer look at the events that have transpired. The SDS-backed protest violated the University’s own code of conduct for students, but the University elevated SDS to the highest category that any student group can achieve.

How does this make? This chain of events is simply illogical. Whether it is the continuation of the University’s love affair with liberal groups and ideology, or whether something more sinister is going on here, I do not know. All I know is that something is just plain wrong with this picture.