The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 1991 Page: 1 of 16
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V # Thfi SINCE 1916
Rice Thresher
VOLUME 78, NO. 22
THE ONLY TIME THE PATRIOTS HAVE A WINNING RECORD
JANUARY 25, 1991
m
Nation with her "No Blood for Oil" sculpture before it was vandalized.
Vandals desecrate anti-war sculpture
by Anne Chettle
A sculpture designed by Lovett
senior Rachel Nation in protest of
the war and placed in the main
academic quad created much
controversy on campus last week
as administrators requested her
to move the sculpture and vandals
defaced the work of art.
When Nation first heard that
the United States had bombed
Baghdad on January 16th, she im-
mediately began working on her
creative response to the U.S. attack
of Iraq. She spent six hours de-
signing a sculpture of an oil drum
with red paint splashed on it, dif-
ferent wars pictured along the top,
and a baby doll cut with a hacksaw
also splashed with red paint
Nation placed her sculpture,
filled with 280 pounds of cement
so it could not be moved, in the
academic quad on the morning of*
January 17. The Rice University
Police Department received an
anonymous phone call shortly af-
ter the sculpture appeared in the
quad and in turn contacted Carl
MacDowell, assistant to the presi-
dent. MacDowell, along with
Sarah Nelson Crawford, director
of Student Activities, contacted
Nation and asked her to relocate
the sculpture within the hour and
suggested the Rice Memorial
Center cloisters.
Crawford explained that the
sculpture was not appropriate for
the main quad. "The academic
quad has a tradition of respect;
William Marsh Rice is buried
there, graduation is held there...It
would disturb the pristine quality
of the quad," she said. Crawford said
she supports the sculpture as free-
dom of expression and respects
Nation's right to be heard.
Nation did not object to moving
the piece of art and understood the
administration's point of view. "The
position in the quad could be inter-
preted as a Rice statement, not an
individual one," she conceded.
After the sculpture was moved to
the courtyard of the RMG cloisters, it
was repeatedly vandalized. On the
night of the seventeenth, aThursday,
the baby doll was removed and placed
on Baker sophomore Kyle Henry's
windowsill. Henry is a prominent
organizer of peace activities on
campus.
In addition, some of the pictures
were torn off the barrel, and despite
its weight, the'sculpture has been
moved several times. The identity of
the vandal or vandals is unknown.
Henry was amused by the ap-
pearand of .the doll at his window
and wais not offended. He said he
.believes that it was the act of one or
two individuals, adding, "Most of Rice
is not that childish and tactless."
Nation herself was more out-
raged. She said she was horrified by
the vandalism and does not under-
stand such disrespect of expression.
She wanted to display her opposition
to what she considers, "a pointless
war."
Nation is not alone in her frustra-
tion. Sarah Nelson Crawford said, "It
all boils down to respect.. .There are
other ways of expressing one's dis-
sent" She does believe, however,
that the vandalism "adds to the ex-
pression of the sculpture...at least
people are taking a stand."
Marty Vest, Director of the Ley
Student Center, said she was not
surprised by the vandalism, espe-
cially since it occurred on a pub
night She agreed that the de-
struction could potentially be
blamed on intoxicated individuals.
Jennifer Sanders, a Will Rice
College senior and organizer of
the Middle East Forum held on
January 15th, believes the van-
dalism of the sculpture "is a
cowardly political statement...
different opinions are not re-
spected." Sanders has plans to
begin a new club, the Rice Peace
Forum. This organization would
demonstrate its dislikeofwar and
violence of any kind, not limiting
itself to the current war. So far
about 60 students are interested
in such a club.
There are students, al-
though opposed to the vandalism
of the sculpture, who were of-
fended by the both the sculpture
and the statement it expressed.
Ty Bailey, a junior at Lovett,
believes the sculpture is a "com-
plete distortion ofwhatour troops
are doing...It implies that the
troops are fighting for oil and
killing babies, when the soldiers
are there to stop a barbaric des-
pot"
He went on to say, "It is fine to
make a personal statement, but
the placement of a sculpture in
the middle of the quad assumes
universal student body support."
Pio Hocate, also a junior at
Lovett said, "The troops are there
to stop a madman... It is not about
oil, but about war and peace."
Hocate's father has been in Saudi
Arabia since the beginning of
October.
Rice remembers MLK
by Sylvia Van
At noon on Monday, January 21,
some 100 Rice students, professors,
and members of the Houston com
munity gathered in the main quad-
rangle in honor of Martin Luther
King, Jr. Day.
Sid Richardson sophomore Byron
Pope, president of the Black Student
Union, gave the opening address. He
spoke of a people's innate need for
liberty and of how masses would rise
up to fight for it, as blacks did in the
1960s, and as oppressed people of
authoritarian nations such as the
Soviet Union and South Africa do
today.
Pope pointed out the irony of the
day of January 15; it was King's birth-
day as well as the deadline for Saddam
Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait.
He noted that the struggle between
"freedom and oppression Justice and
injustice, right and wrong" in the
world is constant.
Pope challenged each person to
decide which force should win in this
contest, and then, like King, to fight
for it
Baker sophomore Shawn Young
then gave an expressive yet calm
reading of King's "I Have a Dream"
speech. When SRC junior Tricia
Elliott sang the black national an-
them, a spiritual known thoughout
African-American communities,
those who knew the melody hummed
softly.
The memorial closed with a prayer
from Father Bryant Fontenot, who
called on people to overcome human
imperfections through faith in God
and to learn to understand diversity—
whether in race, language, or religion.
And how far have we advanced
since the original delivery of the "1
Have a Dream" speech in 1963?
Young said that despite a great im-
provement in the condition of Afri-
can-Americans since then, racism has
been institutionalized. Young com-
mented that even if the proper legis-
lation promises to combat racism,
"the economic and social effects of
racism will continue a long time."
Pope expressed similar frustra-
tion with current race relations. He
said blatant racism has faded, but
covert racism still lingers. He said,
for example, that there is high inci-
dence of black males being stopped
by campus police, ostensibly becau se
they look suspicious. He proposed
that the university sponsor more pro-
grams to "heighten people's aware-
ness of the existence of racism."
Baker sophomore Shawn Young delivers Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream."
NROTC closets uniforms
by Heidi Huettner
Responding to a potential threat
of harassment by anti-war activists,
the Reserve Officer Training Corps
midshipmen did not wear their uni-
forms on Wednesday, January 23, as
is normally required of them.
The midshipmen, students at the
university in training to be naval of-
ficers, were informed lastWednesday
of the change in policy.
Rice ROTC Commander Richard
Magalis explained, "We just made a
decision until we find out what the
potential problems in the Houston
area would be...We basically had
discussed it last week, and when the
conflict started last week, we decided
not to wear [uniforms] this
Views differ on meaning of 'politically correct' speach
by Amy Keener
Facing the retirement of the
founder and former chair of the Rice
department of religous studies Niels
N ielson, members of the current fac-
ulty are wresting the issue of "politi-
cally correct" expression and the
relevance of the issue in selecting a
possible replacement
Outlining a job description is the
first step in the process for selecting
a new chair, and according to Ann
Klein, chair of the search committee,
the description was worded with great
care.
"We wrote the job description as
broadly as possible," Klein stated.
"We would welcome a person with
expertise in comparative studies."
Other faulty members in the de-
partment have expressed fears that
adjusting the curriculum to reflect a
comparative approach to the study of
religion and philosophy weakens the
foundations for teaching traditional
western thought by limiting the ex-
pression of traditional thought and
substituting the .teaching of other
modes of thought
"Incredibly, it now appears to be
viewed as undesirable to teach theol-
ogy in a religious studies depart-
ment," wrote Rice religious studies
professor James Sellers in an edito-
rial to the Wall Street jQurnal. "It's a
violation of the new multicultural or-
thodoxy." "
Klien notes that theology remains
an integral part of the curriculum
and is included as one pf the desir-
able fields for the position in the job
description.
Sellers also speculates that the
"wish to be 'Politically Correct'" has
initiated the new emphasis on teach-
ing other traditions. "The threat
today...comes...from the equivalent
of Maoist Red Guards telling us that
the Western tradition is unaccept-
able." Sellers said in the letter that at
least half of the department's ten-
ured faculty members object to the
committee's reluctance to hire
someone whose background is de-
scribed by the word "theology."
Klein clearly refutes the claim
made in the Sellers article. "This
[broad job description] does not
mean that we are not interested in
western religious thought I want to
stress that" stated Klein. "The cat-
egories of expertise which we re-
quest are framed in the western tra-
dition."
While the term "politically cor-
SEE P.C., PAGE 6
week...The idea is to not be too vis-
ible out and about"
Magalis added. "These folks arc
not on active duty... and I ju st though t
it might expose them to an unneces-
sary risk^j
Although Magalis said that no
threat has been made specifically to
the Rice unit, he aknowledged.
"There's all kinds of people who think
all different things [in Houston]."
"It's going to be a temporary
thing," he noted. "They may be back
in [uniform] by next Wednesday...if
we determine that there's less of a
threat and there's not the kind of
thing going on with the peace
marches—not that there's anything
wrong with the peace marches."
Sid Richardson freshman and
ROTC midshipman Bill Blackwell
supported the policy change. "If it
will help us to not antagonize people
on campus then I think it's a good
thing, because thejast thing I want is
a campus with people yelling at me
when they don't even know me."
SRC freshman ROTC cadet An-
drew Robertson did not feel that the
change was necessary. "I wouldn't
feel endangered wearing my uni-
form," he said. «
Three other ROTC members re-
fused to comment
A&.E
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Moeller, Kurt & Yates, Jay. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 1991, newspaper, January 25, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245773/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.