Susan J. Smith
EDEQUITY Administrator
________________________________________________________________________________
my name is kim ngo, and i'm the treasurer of texas a&m university
natl org for women.
i was hoping that you could give tamu now some advice on how
to proceed in this delicate situation.
to bring you up to pace, texas a&m has been undergoing this
ludicruous 'civil' war concering the annual bonfire that
the aggies have each year.
it was recently exposed in the school newspaper, the battalion,
that some of the students (male & female) have been displaying
extremely profane statements. these include "girls w/ big tits
do it better" and "will work for fellatio".
the university decided that the issue should be
left to the student organization to resolve for itself.
however, the sunday after the story broke in the newspaper, it
was reported that two leaders of the organization
knowingly allowed a stripper to perform at cut site.
not only that, but the opinion columnist who wrote the
editorial criticizing the profanity was innundated by
crude t-shirts w/ her face on it w/ the words "fuck this
bitch" as a caption. these were worn by students participating
in bonfire cut/stack (events preparing for bonfire).
this was met my the university w/ indifference, left for the
bonfire committee to correct itself. all university officials
had to say about these events have been "boys will be boys", that
they hope no one will be offended, and if they are, they can file
a complaint.
it is obvious that if these children meet the challenge of eradicaing
their offensive statements with nothing but more appalling behaviour,
namely hiring strippers to a site open for all sexes, students,
participants, then the university should intervene.
however, tamu now is pusing for written stipulations - even though
the student org. handbook clearly states that organizations should
only reflect the highest ideals of the university and that they are
subject to state and federal laws - does it need to be written
explicitly that these actions are not to be tolerated?
what would you recommend we do? seeing as how student opinion
of tamu now is so misconstrued, we are forming alligances with
other organizations to take action - namely informing
the press, parent's organizations, and whomever we think would
support us in this matter.
we would like to get this out and open since texas a&m seems to
have a knack for keeping controversial matters like this from
surfacing.
is there any advice you could give us on going about this?
any help would be appreciated.
thanks,
kim ngo
kimmy@tamu.edu
--
"Systems are corruptible but not the creative self, not the self and not
the world that is created on a human basis."
-anais nin