EDITORIAL: Taking a stand

Columbia students agitatingColumbia students agitatingfor an Ethnic Studies majorColumbia students agitatingfor an Ethnic Studies majordisplayed activist sentimentsColumbia students agitatingfor an Ethnic Studies majordisplayed activist sentimentslong absent from this campus.Columbia students agitatingfor an Ethnic Studies majordisplayed activist sentimentslong absent from this campus._____________________________ The Columbia students saw a critical need going unfulfilled and decided they had to take action to remedy this situation. While sit-ins, lock-ins and hunger strikes -- all of which have happened at Columbia this year -- may seem more reminiscent of the 1960s than they are relevant to the 1990s, we'd be hard-pressed to cite any recent examples of such grass-roots student activism here at Penn. That's not to say hot-button issues haven't arisen here; they have, and in sizable numbers over the past few years. Consider randomized housing, the denial of tenure to English Professor Gregg Camfield, the institution of "virtual" residential colleges, the availability of interschool and interdisciplinary minors, the lack of minority permanence among the faculty, the new student judicial system? the list goes on. But through it all, University students have remained remarkably silent. Granted, student apathy is not a new phenomenon; 18-to-25 year-olds and other members of Generation X are notorious for low turnouts on election days and a general reluctance to get involved in causes or become passionate about issues affecting their states, the nation or the world. But in the group of students who were barricaded inside Columbia's Hamilton Hall, we have a fine example of the exact opposite of what's come to be expected from our generation. We don't have to live down to the labels of "uncaring" and "unconcerned" pinned on us by parents and professors. We have voices and stakes in the future, and it's time to use the former to help shape the latter. The students at Columbia have shown a willingness to break the law and risk their academic careers for a cause in which they truly believe. We're not suggesting that such a dramatic scene be reenacted here, but we'd be encouraged by any signs of life among our peers.