The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 8, 2008 Page: 3 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8,2008
Guest column
*
Image, not altruism, defines endowment
Just recently, the Senate Finance
Committee mailed out letters to ev-
ery university, public or private, with
endowments over $500million. The let-
ters requested information
about endowment growth,
spending rates and finan-
cial aid policies from each
respective college. Before
this is written off as another
publicity stunt by a Con-
gress more content to tackle
steroids in baseball than real
issues, allow me to examine
causes for concern.
The past decade has
witnessed -stratospheric
growth in both the endow-
ments and the tuition of elite universi-
ties. Harvard University endowment
now stands at near $35 billion, more
than the annual state budget of Mas-
sachusetts. For the sake of my column,
I will use Harvard synonymously to
describe trends affecting all elite,
private institutions.
Although Harvard should be ap-
plauded for its fundraising efforts,
much of this enormous wealth has
been achieved through tax breaks on
capital gains for non-profit institutions.
Even more alarming, Harvard, unlike
most non-profits in the United States,
has no mandate on the spending rate
of this endowment. Harvard is not
legally required to spend any of this
money on anything, let alone for the
purpose of reducing the tuition burden
on students. Sensing the growing
scrutiny, Harvard, in an act of either as-
tounding coincidence or clairvoyance,
Kurt
Wilson
announced an overhaul of its financial
aid policies a little more than a month
before the congressional inquiry.
Harvard's new "middle income"
initiative eliminates loan
burdens for students with
household incomes under
$60,000 and reduces costs
for those with incomes of
$120,000 to $180,000. In
a prime example of one-
upmanship,^Yale University
went so far as to include
incomes up to $200,000.
Never mind that the me-
dian income in the United
States is $48,(XX) and that
an income of $180,000puts a
household solidly within the top 5 per-
cent of the entire country, Harvard is
now helping out the "middle class."
Charging a price so incomprehen-
sible to the average person allows
Harvard to maintain an exclusive
image while at the same time tout its
generous aid policies. A full two-thirds
of students at Harvard are already on
financial aid of some sort, and this was
prior to the new initiative.
'Hie impetus for the recent drastic
increase in tuition prices is twofold:
Revenue growth and brand loyalty. On
the surface, the first reason appears
simple enough. Charging a higher
cost brings Harvard more money,
right? Wrong. Remember, the major-
ity of students at Harvard are already
beneficiaries of aid. For every student
able to pay the increased cost, there are
two who cannot. So, Harvard actually
loses revenue by raising costs? Wrong
again. To truly understand what is at
work here, a closer examination of the
financial aid system is needed.
Charging a price so
incomprehensible to
the average person
allows Harvard to
maintain an exclusive
image while at the
same time tout its
generous aid policies.
Take for example, your average
Johnny Farmer. Johnny is just a
country boy, born and raised in south
Des Moines, Iowa (cue Americana
music). Johnny excels in school, and
receives a letter of admission from Yale.
Through a complex methodology in-
volving his household income, assets,
and the value of his grandmother's
antique collection, Yale ascertains
that Johnny can afford to pay $35,000
a year to attend. This is also the cost
of attendance, so he does not benefit
from aid this year. The following year
tuition increases costs to $42,(XX) and
Johnny is hopeful of finally benefiting
from aid. His financial package arrives
and he is shocked to find that Yale has
offered him a work-study opportu-
see ENDOWMENT, page 4
Guest column
Border wall slashes through Texas' soul
On a Saturday afternoon, I ride
my bike through the streets of
downtown Brownsville, Texas. 1
pass old brick storefronts on both
sides with boarded second
stories and wrought iron
balconies, tributes to a
city that boomed in the
late 19th century Between
streets that bear the names
of U.S. presidents — Ad-
ams, Jefferson, Madison,
Monroe — is a crumbling
cemetery with grave-
stones dating far back into
Brownsville's past. The
concrete walls are worn
to expose rusted rebar,
but the cemetery is aflutter with
eye-catching fabric flowers, bright
as the day they were dyed.
I pass through Washington I 'ark and
smile, knowing that it will be packed in
a few weeks with musicians and fans,
that tejano, grupero and mariachi
will wail at a three-day party, Charro
Days — the South Texas equivalent
of Mardis Gras or Carnival.
Along International Boulevard
I pass Fort Brown, where in 1846
General Zachary Taylor's soldiers
fought to take this land for the United
States, now occupied by students of
the University of Texas at Browns-
ville. Between the aged buildings
of the fort, a striking new campus
stand s along the river and palm trees
dot Spanish-styled courtyards. Inter-
national Boulevard ends at Interna-
tional Bridge, which is crowded with
cars and pedestrians. Some may be
Mexican nationals returning home
from work or shopping and others
may have U.S. or dual-citizenship,
residency or temporary visas.
It is, of course, impossible to tell
by looking. I count three Border
Patrol trucks within eyesight as I
turn onto Elizabeth Street and ride
to the end of East 13th street. I lay
my bike on the ground under live
oaks and mesquites and stare out
at the Rio Grande.
Two summers ago I moved to the
Texas-Mexico border after receiv-
ing my placement from Teach For
America — the Rio Grande Valley,
Brownsville the city that describes itself
as "on the border, by the sea." I teach
Elizabeth
Stephens
U.S. Government to 12th graders in
one of the five public high schools in a
city where 44 percent of the residents
fall below the federal government's
pover ty level and 92 percent
are Hispanic.
For my students, the
border is not a political
boundary, a feature or a
phenomenon — it is their
world. Many of my students
live with family in Mexico
and cross from Matamoros
to Brownsville daily to
attend school. Others are
not lucky enough to have
their families so close, and
live alone or with distant
relatives in this country where they
may only technically belong.
I recently helped a talented
young man in my class apply to Rice,
and he explained that his mother has
only a border resident's legal status
and will not be able to visit him if he
goes to college in Houston. I teach
many students who shy away from
questions about college applications
because of the cost or because they
do not have a Social Security number
or fear a parent or relative might be
found to be an illegal citizen.
When we study segregation,
Brown v. Hoard of Education, the
civil rights and Chicano movements
I tell my students that laws are only
government-enforced rules and may
or may not have any basis in morality,
equality or justice. I tell them that
laws can be passed in hatred, in fear
or in a desperate attempt to cling to
the status quo. I teach that it is the
responsibility of the minority to be
courageous, to point out these unjust
laws and fight for their destruction
and the destruction of the beliefs that
create them. This is what comes to
mind when I hear the word "illegal"
applied to a human being, and this is
what I think of as I look at the river, a
sluggish ribbon of green that bends
out of sight in the brush, and try to
imagine this place if a certain law.
the Secure Fence Act of 2006, were
to come to realize its aims here.
When he signed the Secure
Fence Act into law on Oct. 26,2006,
President George W. bush said that
"this bill will help protect the Ameri-
can people. This bill will make our
borders more secure."
These words show a callous lack
of understanding for the reality of
the border, where melding cultures
cross the river with no regard to the
political boundary it represents. The
act itself authorizes the building of
more than 700 double-reinforced
concrete wall that will stretch in
segments along the border at many
of the most active access points. The
proposed plan shows the wall as an ir-
regular line of dashes, cutting across
the private properties of landowners
in its path and even walling out large
sections of UT-Brownsville's land
and campus.
For those who heed the political
and media-sponsored drumbeat ral-
lying Americans to fear oncoming
waves of illegals, drugs and terror-
ists, the idea of a wall may create a
sense of security, but it is only a false
sense. A glance at the porous plans,
drawn without regard to the human or
natural environments they will impact,
see BORDER, page 4
Guest column
Co-ed flag example of sexist
system and gender standards
I love equality. In all the world,
I do not think there is anything I
love more, except for maybe peace.
What I do not love, however, is
when people and institu-
tions decide to enforce
a "separate but equal"
standard and call it equal-
ity. Itwasdecided in 1954
that this standard for
equality is absurd, but
it was clear far before
Brown v. Board of Educa-
tion that institutions that
enforce separate rules
for separate sets of the
population are violating
a basic right to be judged
by the same standards.
Co-ed flag football is one such
institution. Do not get me wrong;
I think co-ed flag has got it right in
some ways. For example, flag re-
quires that a team of eight consist
of four men and four women. This
rule makes sense, as the purpose
of the game is to include both men
and women.
However, the other rules are
a little more dubious. One such
rule is the open/closed play rule,
which requires that every other
play involve either a female passer
or a female receiver. The rules
mandate nothing about when a
play must include a male passer
or a male receiver. The inher-
ent stereotype contained in this
rule — that, if given a chance
men would bypass women to
only involve their male counter-
parts — is offensive and a product
of an overly politically correct
society that feels women must be
protected from a supposed male
advantage in everything.
Not only this, but it does not
effectively protect men from the
same sort ofball hogging by women.
While the co-ed flag rules state that
every otherplay"must involve either
a female passer or a female receiver,"
it also explicitly states that "there are
no other restrictions concerning a
male passer completing forward
passes to a female receiver, or female
to female."
By not extending the same
protection to men as to women, co-
ed flag football implies something
inherently aggressive about the
nature of men and inherently pas-
sive about the nature of women.
By doing so, it helps neither.
Running rules contain another
kind of inequality: "The offensive
team males cannot advance the ball
through their scrimmage line.
Essentially, this means that if a
rusher passes the line of scrimmage,
a male quarterback cannot run the
ball, while a female quarterback
Julia
Lukomnik
can. When asking around about
this rule, I was given the explana-
tion that men are inherently faster
than women, and allowing a male
quarterback to run the
ballwould not be fair. I am
not going to argue with
the fact that most college
men can run faster than
most college women, but
this issue of fairness is
something I find unfair.
The rule provides fe-
male quarterbacks with
a course of action that
it does not allow male
quarterbacks, all on the
basis that a male running
quarterback would be unstoppable
by theopposingteam. If the assump-
tion is that men can run faster than
women, there are still, by virtue
of previous rules, four men on the
opposing team who can catch the
male quarterback.
The last rule I take issue with
regards scoring: If a female player
scores a touchdown, the point
value is nine. If a female player
throws a legal forward pass and
a touchdown is scored by any of-
fensive team member, the point
value is nine. However, if a male
quarterback throws a touchdown
to a male receiver, or a ball is run
by a male runner for a touchdown,
the point value is only six.
This rule is unjustifiable. It as-
sumes that women are less able
than men to score. It assumes
that women's skills are inherently
less than those of men's, so their
efforts should be rewarded more.
And it assumes, once again, Jiat
men are more likely to pass to men
as opposed to women.
First off, ask any Powderpuff
team if they feel women can score,
whether against men or women,
and I bet they will answer with
a resounding yes. Then ask the
women who play co-ed flag if
they feel they need some sort of
crutch, and I bet the answer will
be a resounding no. Lastly, ask the
men who play co-ed flag if they
would rather pass to a man or to
someone, regardless of gender,
who is open to catch a touchdown
pass. I am pretty sure they will
choose the latter.
I am not in any way advocating
for an end to co-ed flag football.
I love intramural sports and the
community they build. What I am
advocating is a change to outdated
and sexist rules that mistake
men as chauvinists and women
as passive.
Julia Lukomnik is a Baker College
sophomore.
the Rice Thresher
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Whitfield, Stephen. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 8, 2008, newspaper, February 8, 2008; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443000/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.