Another week, another story on programs created to help students doing the exact opposite. But first things first.

An (in)sincere congratulations are in order for ASUO President Ben Eckstein and Vice President Katie Taylor. The court hearing is over, the justices are done deliberating and you’ve been found to only have committed a serious violation of fraud during last year’s election. Thus, you both are able to stay in office as the Constitution Court didn’t have enough evidence to find you guilty of an egregious violation.

When your administration has been filled with nothing but disappointment you should celebrate when something actually goes in your favor.

On to another ASUO mishap.

Last week, I was blessed with the opportunity to read about Oregon Student Association’s apparent mishandling of the ASUO internship class. It is unfortunate that this report didn’t surprise me in the least. While truly disappointing, it should come as no surprise that when confronted with people that hold opposing views, a common response is to ridicule, ostracize and malign them rather than engage in real discussion.@@Ad hominem!!@@

In many classrooms across the country this holds true. Step into any ethics, philosophy or political science classroom and as almost assuredly as the day turning into night will there be a debate that pits two (or more) opposing viewpoints.

Thankfully, most debates focus on the topic or discussion question at hand and don’t devolve into shouting matches or bouts of sarcasm and insults (though that does happen). As entertaining as these may be, they only serve to polarize everybody in the class. And good professors will recognize when this is occurring and put a stop to this.

But problems arise when they don’t, or worse yet, are the perpetrators of alienation.

Nobody wants to feel this way. Just Monday in one of my classes, we discussed the ruling of a Supreme Court case, with only a handful of individuals opposing the ruling and a great majority in favor. After the topic had been thoroughly discussed only one person was willing to still say they opposed the ruling.

The best part about this was that nobody felt the need to make a snide remark, nor did anyone make a personal attack on anyone with whom they disagreed.

This is how all classes should operate. Instead, the student body has to learn of reports that people in charge of making students feel included and welcome were, in fact, actively subverting these ideals because of a difference in political views.

Having seen instances when debates turn ugly and personal, it then left me utterly speechless when Sen. Lamar Wise claimed that people who had “… problems with the class (they) must be fabricated.”

Are you kidding me?

This demonstration of such naivety is almost as amusing as it is offensive. If Mr. Wise’s statement was in sincerity then it frightens me that he was running for vice president of the ASUO, and at one time was president of the ASUO Senate.

I’d be willing to wager that a majority of students have encountered similar scenarios to the one I described above. So for such a statement to come out from someone who should be familiar with these instances is in a word, baffling.

Of course, OSA Executive Director Emily McLain@@http://www.orstudents.org/osa/info/C6/@@ was quick to fire off a letter to the editor in support of all the good that OSA does around campus.

While it may be true that OSA has done some good things for students, they take no effort to address the claims brought forth by students who were left unhappy with the way the class turned out.

Instead it reads like a justification for their continued existence on campus and for the continuance of an OSA staff member leading the ASUO internship class (but not before they mislabel it the OSA internship class — in what is perhaps a telling Freudian slip).

Mind you, this all took place three years ago, and hopefully things have gotten better since then. Maybe OSA has better instructed their instructors. Maybe there has been a shift in approach to how they teach the class.

Then again, maybe they haven’t.

Point is, we wouldn’t have to ask how the class and instructor are doing if we kept teaching in-house. Former ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz made it a point to hire a graduate teaching fellow to lead the class, as they aren’t affiliated with a political organization and are actually part of the University community.

It is unfortunate that students have been subjected to substandard teachers that were supposed to not only educate them on expressing their views but make them feel included as well. To then exclude them because of their views that they were encouraged to develop and express is disheartening.

The perfect illustration of how damaging such “leadership” causes, we need look no further than Nietzsche: “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”@@really? that’s rich coming from an elitist@@

It appears this lesson is lost on many here at the University.