Sections

To the Editor:

The latest issue of the Justice contained an editorial called A Modfest Morass that was nothing short of an embarrassment to the Brandeis community. As a Brandeis student I was ashamed to read such assuming and immature writing in the paper. The statements in this editorial that were directed at student life are a joke, and I do not want to be represented by them. Hence I am writing about it to a paper that, in my opinion, still has its dignity intact.

I had a problem with every aspect of this article starting with the the administration approached the situation as would a parent, giving the students little incentive to drink more responsibly. Are you kidding me? Youre asking the university to worry about giving you a reason to drink responsibly? How about being a decent person? Or not being stupid? To me, those are both perfectly good incentives to drink responsibly. Perhaps you havent reached the point where that motivation comes from within.

In the next paragraph, the article makes assumptions and speaks on behalf of the entire student body saying, It would help, though, if the administration acted like it cared about student concerns. Given the high priority students place on having a modfest, it should follow that it would also be a priority for student life administrators. It is my firm belief that if you ask a random sample of students attending Brandeis what their highest priorities were here, you would receive a surprisingly small amount of responses that included modfest. In addition the article states that, [modfest] was quite arguably the campus biggest party. Why is that statement quite arguable, yet modfest being a high priority for students is cited as given?

Following this, the article dives right into hypocrisy with its suggestion that the administration supply pizza to the students to help minimize the dangerous effects of pre-gaming. If I understood this correctly, the same person that just criticized the administration for acting like a parent, just asked them to protect him with pizza.

I dont have an issue with the goal of the article. Getting modfest back would be cool. However, restoration of trust between administration and student body will not be accomplished by complaining like an 8th grader. Im sorry if your parents sent you to bed without dessert, but Id rather not read about it in a Brandeis newspaper. Next time you want to publish an editorial like that, please, speak for yourself.

Jason Feder '07