Editor:

I am writing to express my extreme disgust at the behavior of the student "protestors" who have disrupted the life of our college by positioning themselves around Alexander Hall for the last two days. I place the word "protestors" in quotation marks because the only thing those people were really protesting was the lack of a genuine cause for them to get behind, and the only statement they made to the college community at large is that they desperately need to feel important. Unfortunately, it is not 1964, and they were not standing before a segregated public schoolhouse in Mississippi; rather, it is 2000, and they were standing in front of an administration building at a private college whose only crime is not objecting to the fact that its food service provider (gasp!) pays people minimum wage for minimum skill jobs.

Do you people realize how hypocritical your actions were? You were trying to force the Pomona College administration to support a non-intimidation agreement. Hello?

Now, since as all self-righteous liberals do, you are going to get your collective panties in a wad and ignore the valid points made in this letter simply because they do not accord with your own self-serving views, let me repeat what I have just said in the hope that it may register the second time around: you are bloody HYPOCRITES for trying to FORCE the administration to support a NON-INTIMIDATION agreement. Think about it.

What has transpired at Pomona College over the last two days is the absurd logical conclusion of the overindulgent mindset that plagues liberals and academic institutions alike. For whatever reason, one of the tenets of modern liberalism is that all beliefs and behaviors are equally valid; Pomona College fosters this belief, and its students (at least the unwashed wanna-be radicals among them) have obviously taken this lesson to heart, so much so that they have come to believe that taking over buildings is an acceptable way to behave.

The people who surrounded Alexander claim to have "relinquished control" of the building as of 4 pm today (5/2/00). I’ve got news for you folks: you never had control of the building. What you had was the tacit, patronzing approval of an administration so keen on not undermining its fragile little students’ self-esteem that it was unwilling to do what it could have, and should have done: forcibly removed and expelled every one of you. Unfortunately, by cowing to your naïve demands, the administration has reinforced in your minds that the behavior you exhibited is okay. It is not. You behaved exactly like spoiled little children: you didn’t get your way, so you threw a temper tantrum.

Are you all aware of the fact that the Aramark workers voted last year on unionizing and decided against it? And yet you, you spoiled children, know better than they do what’s best for them. Ask yourselves honestly: is what you’re doing for them or for you? Because in my opinion, in the last two days you’ve made it quite clear with your half-assed attempts at social action that the whole Worker Support Committee thing is no more than an attempt to validate your own privileged position in society by serving as a salve to your guilt-ridden liberal consciences. The only thing sadder than the packaged rebellion you’ve displayed is the manner in which the faculty and administration at this college have indulged it. I can’t wait until I graduate next week and enter the real world, where this kind of bullshit isn’t tolerated.

Sincerely,

Zev Kusin ’00