Thumbs up: Duke supports LGBT students after anti-gay protests
The student body at Duke University rallied in support of the campus’ LGBT community this week in response to a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church hate group. The church, which maintains a violently anti-homosexual agenda and makes a habit of protesting at military funerals, chose to protest near Duke’s campus in response to the perceived sinfulness of the campus culture. In response, members of the Duke Chapel and the Religious Life staff held a breakfast for members of the University’s LGBT community as a show of support for homosexual students from the religious branch of the University. This was an exceptionally compassionate move on the part of the University’s religious community and provides a loving counterpoint to the blind hatred of the protests.
Thumbs down: Rice, Cheney signed off on waterboarding memos
As if the torture memos describing the interrogation techniques that would be used on suspected terrorists weren’t unsettling enough, the Senate probe into the depth of the torture program instigated under President Bush reveals that top-level officials such as Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice were not only aware of the usage of torture methods including waterboarding, they signed off on them. Cheney, who has enacted a media blitz rivaling Rod Blagojevich’s since he left office, claims the Obama administration is sitting on memos that would prove that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” allowed U.S. intelligence to gather vital information on al-Qaeda, and that they were integral to our “success” in Iraq. If these memos exist, and are brought forward, perhaps the actions of the Bush administration will be cast in a better light; for now, its members look like war criminals who will most likely get away with this scot-free.
Thumbs up: AEI students could vote in next election
Any effort to involve more students in the ASUO is clearly a good thing, especially when those efforts are motivated by a desire to make sure every student who pays an incidental fee has a say in how that fee is spent. The students of the American English Institute at the University have never voted in an ASUO election before, though they consistently pay the I-fee as a part of their tuition. Not only does this seem unfair, it’s a clear violation of the ASUO Constitution, so an effort to correct this problem is definitely a worthwhile one.
Thumbs down: College football unlikely to move to playoffs
Athletes dislike it, fans loathe it and even President Barack Obama has called for its reform, but it appears that college football’s Bowl Championship Series system won’t be replaced with a playoff format anytime soon. On Tuesday, Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson pitched an eight-team playoff and other changes to his fellow BCS commissioners. They agreed to consider the proposal and reconvene in June. But considering that the NCAA has agreed to stick to the BCS through 2013, no one expects a change to be made soon. The BCS has replaced the human drama of competitive playoffs with a complicated math equation that frustrates everyone involved. It would serve in the best interest of college athletics if it was retired indefinitely.
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