To the Editor:
I once read "The true teacher defends his pupil against his own influence," and this is exactly what destroyed Wednesday's showing of the "Hell Night" videos. I'm sorry that Professor Luxon felt he was in a hostile atmosphere, but certainly he can't ignore the fact that he had a hand in creating that atmosphere. Professor Luxon had his forum and provided a good introduction to the videos and their content. Although I still disagree that he misrepresents the significance of hell night, I find no wrong in his attempt to provide some basic tools for analyzing what we were going to see. However, Professor Luxon abused his forum with his running commentary to the video, and the request that we watch it in silence was neither rude nor improper. There was, after all, a discussion to follow.
Professor Luxon failed to defend his students against his own ideas. He failed to let intelligent people come to their own conclusions and then discuss them.
The five minutes of video I saw were disturbing, but I hold strong to my assertion that hell night is not the penultimate initiation ritual that Professor Luxon wishes everyone to believe. I think it unfortunate for all present that Dartmouth has again suffered a night of biased generalizations and missed opportunity for debate.
