To the Editor:
I was in a fraternity basement recently and witnessed a profoundly disturbing sight. Somebody was desperately looking for a condom, asking everyone in the basement, even people whom he didn't know. He never found one. I will let you guess what happened later.
The College is in a position of power, from which it affects aspects of the lives of its students. The Coed Fraternity Sorority system is affiliated with the College, but an administrator essentially told me that condom accessibility in CFS houses was out of the College's jurisdiction. The College does make decisions: it decided to make condoms available at Dick's House and Thayer, and graciously decided to allow the Student Assembly to make condoms available in dormitories. And it decided not to require that condoms be available in CFS houses.
In deciding not to mandate condom accessibility, the administration knowingly increased the amount of unprotected sex on its campus. It can not feign blindness. There is HIV on this campus. There are other sexually transmitted diseases on this campus. The College's decision most likely resulted in students becoming infected by STDs. The same decision may eventually result in some of those people dying from that infection.
I therefore demand that Dartmouth take responsibility for the spread of STDs in college-affiliated residences in which condoms are not available. Dartmouth is in a position from which it makes decisions affecting students' lives, and must take responsibility for those decisions.
DAVID SIFF '95
