To the Editor:
In his letter to the editor in the March 6, 2001 issue of The Dartmouth, Mr. Nilanjan Banerjee '00 seems to miss the point.
Mr. Banerjee touts the fraternity/sorority/co-ed system as a hotbed for diversity, and I must say, this is one of the first times I've heard that argument (and I'll blindly take that as a positive sign of change). But we free-thinking and compassionate human beings would agree that if a brother or group of brothers were outside directing a stream of threatening comments to a group of people, that this is clearly not them expressing their culturally diverse points of view --- it is one group threatening or insulting another group, plain and simple.
Don't deny it or excuse it.
It's outright immature behavior, and when this kind of thing happens at my alma mater, I am really embarrassed. I went to Dartmouth to learn and commune with people that I had thought were my intellectual and spiritual equals. For the most part, I found my peers, but I was sorely disappointed with the rest -- the battles I fought just so that all students could feel welcomed, accepted, and not threatened, insulted, or belittled were numerous, and were not at all what I expected attending a learning institution with the credibility and history of Dartmouth.
Come on, Dartmouth. Us alums are expecting you to act with integrity, smarts, and compassion in all your affairs. If you don't work to improve yourself and how you handle yourself in everything you do now, you won't get much time in the future, believe me.
I will leave it to the student body, the faculty, and the administration to hold each other accountable, to rigorously and honestly search and understand your motives. And when you do wrong by insulting or hurting another human, you damn well owe up to what you've done and make amends and institute change so that others may learn from your mistakes.
