Staff Editorial | Flawed process, chance to move forward

For the past month, the College has been mired in debate sparked by the recent issue of The Imperialist. The debate weighs the right to personal expression against the right to comfort in one’s community.

The issue came to a head last Sunday when the Vassar Student Association (VSA) voted to de-authorize the Moderate, Independent and Conservative Alliance (MICA) for inflammatory images and prose published in its newsletter, The Imperialist. This decision lends an opportunity for the VSA to craft guidelines specifically defining the standards to which publications and organizations will be held.

Unfortunately, this has not happened. VSA has not written a resolution explaining the intent of the de-authorization of MICA, nor the expectations to which organizations and publications will be held in the future. This does not mean that such reasoning does not exist, but until it is made public to the Vassar community, it will be difficult to take progressive steps forward.

The VSA, however, should not bear all of the blame. MICA is implicated in the fact that they originally published the offensive material. Those identifying themselves as the concerned students have also been regularly handing out unofficial materials at VSA meetings as well as at the MICA forum. Furthermore, multiple respones have come from members of the administration, but an official College response has been unclear and delayed.

In the most recent all campus e-mail, President Fergusson wrote, “We must support the right of free expression, yes, but we must also continually make clear our collective resolve, in this very special Vassar community, to support one another.”

This is sound reasoning upon which we can build clear expectations for future discourse. As a community, we should defend our right to free expression, but we should also require such dialogue to be conducted in a civil and respectful manner. We must recognize that crude, hurtful diatribes have the power to marginalize other voices.

In 1985, the Vassar faculty wrote, “Under the rule of civility, individuals within the community are expected to behave reasonably, use speech responsibily, and respect the rights of others. Genuine freedom of mind is not possible in the absence of civility.”
While faculty and administrators can lend helpful insight into these problems, student leaders must now take the initiative and define VSA standards regarding free expression. While last Sunday’s decision and Wednesday’s forum have the potential to set the College in a new, productive direction, we cannot gain positive insight without clear definition of our goals and expectations.