The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 86, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, April 23, 1999 Page: 4 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER
OPINION
FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1999
College presidents
Student Committee's recommendations about NOD
The College and Student Associa-
tion Presidents' Committee was
formed in March to examine alco-
hol and safety concerns. For news
coverage of this report, See Page 1.
For 25 years, Rice students
have made the individual decision
on whether to attend Wiess
College's Night of Decadence
party. However, recent concerns
regarding safety and sexual ha-
rassment at the party have forced
the Rice community to collectively
decide whether NOD should exist
and what changes should be made.
We are confident the report speaks
for itself. However, we want to
ensure that everyone on campus
understands why and how we
came to these recommendations.
We wanted to ensure that all
opinions were represented. We
consulted college chief justices,
party organizers, students, mas-
ters, members of the Rice Alcohol
Beverage Policy Advisory Com-
mittee, and the Rice General Coun-
sel. We worked to uphold many
important goals: ensuring student
safety, preserving our alcohol
policy and maintaining student
self-governance. Our recommen-
dations focused on four key areas:
1. Education about NOD
Our committee determined
that many of the problems and
concerns about NOD stemmed
from a lack of information about
what actually occurs at the party.
We have recommended a number
of measures to ensure that all stu-
dents have the facts they need to
make an informed decision about
NOD. These include college-wide
forums led by Wiess upperclass-
men and dissemination of infor-
mation about NOD after Orienta-
tion Week through advisers. All of
these changes have been sup-
ported by the party's organizers.
2. Increased safety precau-
tions at and around NOD
We have collaborated with the
party's organisers in recommend-
ing increased safety precautions
around the Rice campus on the
night of NOD. These include in-
ter-college communication and
security teams at each college.
Through providing increased
lighting, an escort cart service and
security personnel stationed along
major transit routes, we hope to
allay concerns about safety in trav-
eling to and from the party.
3. Eliminating sexual deco-
rations at the party
Our committee did not find any
evidence to support claims that
sexual decorations at the party led
to any safety or alcohol problems.
However, the Rice General Coun-
sel advised us that such decora-
tions place the future existence of
the party in jeopardy. We con-
cluded that it would be more dan-
gerous for the party to be banned
and then moved off campus.
4. Alcohol policy changes
Our committee's charge also
included working with ABPAC to
modify Rice's alcohol policy. As a
community, we must take personal
responsibility for following and en-
forcing Rice's new alcohol policy,
which safeguards our on-campus
alcohol privileges. These include
requiring all students to sign a
card reiterating Texas law and the
Rice alcohol policy, offering all in-
coming freshmen training on how
to care for intoxicated individuals
and giving chief justices advance
notice when a student chooses to
have a keg in his room. All of these
changes have been supported
unanimously by the colleges' chief
justices and ABPAC.
These recommendations de-
pend on student support and re-
quire that students work together
to ensure their success. If you have
any questions or concerns, please
ask any one of us.
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Senior editor
Each war crime a tragedy
Lamb's blood marked the He-
brews' houses, signaling the angel
of death to pass over their first-born
sons. In Urosevac, Kosovo, a cross
with a Cyrillic "C" in each
comer replaces the pas-
chal blood, spray-painted
on Serb doors to keep sol-
diers from ethnically
cleansing their brethren.
The crisis in Kosovo
summons painful •memo-
ries of two terrors of Jew-
ish history commemo-
rated this month.
Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's or-
chestrated killing and de-
portation of Albanians evokes not
only Hitler's genocide but also the
ancient exodus from Egypt and the'
conflict that preceded it. The present
situation bisects these two past trag-
edies: The Kosovars are neither
heading off to concentration camps
nor wandering in search of their
promised land.
But such comparisons to horrors
past have been overstated. Dialogue
on Kosovo and other contemporary
genocides has been consumed by
an effort to measure them against
the Holocaust.
An April 9 New York Daily News
column entitled "Kosovo is not the
Holocaust" quotes Holocaust survi-
vor Menachem Rosencraft. "If
Kosovo is a holocaust and Rwanda is
a holocaust and Cambodia is holo-
caust, there is nothing particularly
unique about the Holocaust,"
Rosencraft said.
Ran Curiel, Israel's ambassador
to Macedonia and Greece, echoed
the same sentiment in an April 14
Houston Chronicle article. The plight
of the Kosovar Albanians, he said,
"is bad enough, but every time there
is brutality you can't call it a holo-
caust or genocide."
But why does;, it matter if the
Holocaust is unique? Is it really im-
portant how we label these trag-
edies? Do we need to create a unit to
quantify the destruction caused by
each war criminal?
Isn't it enough to say that people
are being forced from their homes,
expelled if they are fortunate, raped
or killed if they are not?
Such comparisons stifle our out-
rage, allowing us to dismiss the fact
that genocide continues to occur.
Phil Baum, executive director of
Brian
Stoler
the American Jewish Congress,
marginalized the Kosovars' suffer-
ing, saying that they had the oppor-
tunity to save themselves by giving
up their rights. "The
people of Kosovo are be-
ing pushed out because
they are members of a dif-
ferent political group. If
they were to give up their
goal of independence,
they could probably co-
exist," Baum told the
Naples (Fla.) Daily News.
"But for Jews, there was
no political accommoda-
tion they could have made
with the Nazis."
Rosencraft uses the details of
genocide as a way to belittle the
Kosovo situation as if dying in a gas
chamber is worse than being shot.
"If you can't differentiate between a
detention camp in Bosnia and
Birkenau with gas chambers, you're
dishonoring the memory of the Ho-
locaust," he said.
Isn't taking active concern in all
crimes against humanity the best
way to honor the memory of the
Holocaust? What significance does
Holocaust remembrance have if we
do not apply that concern to contem-
porary ethnic violence?
The Yom Hashoah (Holocaust
Remembrance Day) display in the
Student Center last week disap-
pointed me. Despite containing lit-
erature using the phrase "never
again," the table made no mention
of Kosovo or other genocides.
In contrast, the Anti-Defamation
League effectively draws the con-
nection to Kosovo. The top of its
home page announces a fund to help
refugees of Kosovo, imploring visi-
tors to "respond as you wish the
world had responded the last time."
No comparisons, no measurements,
just action.
"The Jewish community knows
firsthand that silence breeds trag-
edy. We are particularly proud to be
part of a country that upholds hu-
manitarian ideals and refuses to turn
a blind eye to the horror of ethnic
cleansing. Please join us in helping
the innocent victims of hatred," the
ADL site says.
That's what remembrance is all
about.
Brian Stoler is senior editor and a
Hanszen College sophomore.
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McAlister, Jett & Tam, Mariel. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 86, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, April 23, 1999, newspaper, April 23, 1999; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246649/m1/4/: accessed July 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.