Two weeks after terrorism shook the nation, initial shock and disbelief from the attacks has been replaced with questions of how America should respond.
So last night, at a panel discussion on America's response, members of the Penn community turned out in droves to analyze the attacks.
About 100 students and faculty came together last night to work through the most hard-hitting issues presently facing the United States -- the nation's response and preparation for war and the hate crimes plaguing ethnic and racial minorities.
For Arshad Hassan, one of the event's four panelists and vice president of Penn's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the emotional, and sometimes irrational, behavior of Americans threatens the basic tenets of American society.
"We're hastily taking actions that limit civil liberties and civil rights," the College junior said. Hassan cited statistics from recent polls that showed 49 percent of Americans are in favor of special identification cards for Arab Americans and 34 percent of New Yorkers support internment camps for people suspected of being sympathetic to terrorism.
"It ends up that we're finishing the work that the terrorists started -- the attack on liberties," Hassan said.
PennForum, a group that holds discussion among professors and students, invited different panelists to the discussion to present a variety of political and ethnic perspectives.
And given that the event was rapidly organized in about a week, the planners were thrilled to see one of the largest audiences of any PennForum event.
"Everybody is concerned with this issue," said Jaime Dufresne, a College senior who helped organize last night's event.
Throughout the presentation, students said they hoped that Americans continued with life as it proceeded before the attacks, as adjusting any of their daily activities would be yielding to terrorists.
"Anything we do will be in response to terrorism, which could be seen as giving in to terrorism," President of Penn Arab Student Society Amel Ahmed said.
Though Ahmed isn't sure what America's response should be, the graduate political science student did say, "America should not increase its presence in the Middle East."
During the panel discussion, Pranav Gupta, a College and Wharton senior who helped create the Penn Indian-American Advocacy group, spoke about hate-crimes he has witnessed within his Indian community, such as a bombing at a friend's temple.
On a similar topic, Neuroscience graduate student Kareem Zaghloul spoke as a representative of the Penn Arab Students Society and the Muslim Students Association.
A question-and-answer session followed the panelist presentations, with hands continually flashing into the air.
Jed Gross, PennForum co-chairman, thought interaction between the audience and presenters provided balance to the event.
"I was glad to see that members of the audience seemed willing to confront the views expressed by the panelists," Gross said.
Karen Jehn, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Penn, addressed her concerns that citizens cannot get the information they need to make educated decisions from the mainstream media.
"If Americans knew the history and culpability of the [United States] in these events, such as giving $43 million to [the] Taliban as recently as May, they would be appalled with the rhetoric, the hypocrisy Bush is pushing," said Jehn, a professor in the Management and Psychology departments.
