Advocacy vs. tolerance

Mr. Pyle, as a senior and an English major, I assure you that my understanding of the 'real world' increases exponentially —- daily -— as graduation nears and 'the rest of my life' looms, so perhaps you will excuse my presumption for the following remarks. I also assure you that what may have been your experience at Princeton 20 years ago is most likely no longer the none. Or is it? So, what continuity still exists between your Princeton experience and mine is the origin of my concern.

Every day I walk from McCosh courtyard, through the arch covering the fifth entryway, to lunch. And each time I pass, I look towards McCosh 50. Inscribed in stone above the doorway is the following: "Here we were taught by men and gothic towers democracy and faith and righteousness and love of unseen things that do not die." (H.E. Mierow, '14)

It is a lovely sentiment—something akin to what Robin Williams' character in "Dead Poet's Society" might have opened a literature class with. But Mr. Pyle, as you reminded Mr. Howard Gertler '96 in your letter, we at Princeton do live in the real world. And in our world, sentimental lines from movie scripts just don't cut it. Like it or not, the time has come for the death of "unseen things."

Your claim that the "Office of the Dean of Student Life and other official units of the university colluded" in sponsoring Gay Jeans Day and "exercised unseemly and excessive peer pressure" in attempts to "deliberately politicize a neutral symbol (blue jeans) to single people out, to ostracize them for their beliefs" is astoundingly ironic.

Wow, I didn't realize that the ideological fulcrum of Gay leans Day was ostracizing students and encouraging general feelings of discomfort among members of the student body. Although I do know of several campus fraternities whose threats of 'de-pledging' impressionable and hopefully intolerant first-years forced members of current pledge classes to conspicuously wear khakis. Yes, I think those guys were pretty uncomfortable on Gay Jeans Day. After all, khakis are usually saved for events like formals and those semesterly dinners with mon1 and dad at Lahiere's.

But fraternities aside, Mr. Pyle — after all there are officially no Greek organizations at Princeton — your real concern with the university's apparent advocacy of (yes, you can say it) homosexuality on Gay Jeans Day—with university support of any activity that might remotely — no matter how inadvertently — offend the more conservative sensibilities of some of its students and appear to favor any one given political stance over another — seems to be fundamentally linked to support qua funding.

This brings me to your question, directed again at Mr. Gertler, in which you ask: "For the privilege of paying $28,000 p.a., you mean that parents and students should agree to certain principles that don't exist in the real world?" And to which world are you referring, Mr. Pyle? Would this be the same world that watched Shannon Faulkner fight for a space in the freshman class at the Citadel? Is this the same world in which current presidential candidate Pat Buchanan charmingly quipped something to the effect that all homosexuals deserved to die of AIDS?

Mr. Pyle, your interpretation as a Princeton alum and member of U-Council of what that $28,000 p.a. tuition should provide and my interpretation as a current member of the student body of what that same sum entitles me, are unfortunately inconsistent.

I chose Princeton over other equally academically distinguished institutions not because I wanted "a free and open marketplace of all ideas" that advocated—if anything — indifference and apathy, but because I wanted to go to school in an environment that encouraged and nurtured the open exchange and mutual respect of ideas and more importantly, of difference.

You may argue that this idealistic university climate is exactly the kind of intellectual breeding ground you are arguing in favor of. Yet the brand of 'tolerance' your ideal seems to propose does not acknowledge the need to understand difference. Instead, your tolerance simply advocates intolerance.

And just to clarify, Mr. Pyle, the university does not mandate the "attendance of all first-years at so called sensitivity training sessions about activities which violate the beliefs of many."

No, the university provides opportunities for and openly encourages — after all we are here to have (as that well-loved admissions video advertises) "conversations that matter" — constructive and instructive discussions among students during Freshman Week. None of those meetings arc required; they are there for those interested, and I assure you, are aptly ignored by those who are not. No RA meeting — at least in my own, experience as a first-year, or as a Student Peer Alcohol Advisor, moderating and leading first-year RA discussions — is ever mandatory.

In short, Mr. Pyle, you have missed the point. We do not go to Princeton for $28,000 per year in order to vegetate in a politically and socially sterilized bubble We come to Princeton to study and to learn and to prepare ourselves as conscious, thinking individuals who will hopefully endeavor to do something "in the nation's service." And the last time I checked, this country had more than enough help perfecting apathy and indifference.

Rebecca Greene '96

Letter to the editors of The Daily Princetonian. Publication date unknown, slated to be sometime in March of 1996.