<p>I agree with Ms. Ladybug that the actions by the two students were hateful, regardless of whether they were a hoax, but why didn’t the administrators inform the student body as soon as the perpetrators had been identified and expelled? By not doing so the administrators contributed to a climate of fear and effectively enabled the hoaxers. They should resign.</p>
<p>
Well, I guess I can cop to having pride in my superior insight and knowledge. After all, I was right, and those who feared that this was the work of hate groups were wrong, despite your obvious hope that it may still turn out to be the work of an organized group. That being said, the police report does show that this was a serious problem, and not just a couple of isolated incidents. I think Oberlin did a disservice to the community by allowing it to continue to think that there might be hate groups active on campus, when the facts suggested clearly that this was not the case. Those Oberlin students should have been told the actual truth, without having to rely solely on the truth in their hearts.</p>
<p>As for the motivations of the perpetrators, it seems bizarre to me. It’s beyond any kind of “joke” that a normal person would pursue, and it’s hard to see how anybody could think that they’d gain political advantage from it on any end of the political spectrum. Really, it seems insane.</p>
<p>I say, you go, Hunt, and I’m glad you were right.</p>
<p>I guess I’m glad I was right. There is some hope that racism will eventually fade away, but I think obnoxious idiots will always be with us.</p>
<p>On these threads, it’s a discussion- lots of times, we all know, lots of times, someone inserts a personal comment. So be it. </p>
<p>These kids were stupid. I am sure there is plenty of talk going on in admissions and that the sting will last for years.</p>
<p>Of course, maybe the U should have handled all this a bit differently. Nice to have hindsight.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would bet just the opposite. Admissions will not even think about it for one second.</p>
<p>Idle speculation, likely based on never being privy to admission folks and their chat. You think Harvard forgot Adam Wheeler?</p>
<p>I’m guessing there have already been serious chats with these guys’ high school GCs and possibly the principals.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Given the legal ramifications — anyone would be foolish to discuss it, so ain’t happenin’.</p>
<p>But yes, idle speculation. :)</p>
<p>Wait a minute-these kids weren’t stupid. They got exactly what they wanted. They wanted the entire campus to close down and reflect on the fact that there were all these racists right in their midst. Problem is for these kids and administrators whose primary mission in life seems to be to expose examples of racism is it’s been pretty tough to find real-life examples of racism so the kids had to manufacture it. Brilliant I say just not good that they got caught.
I don’t understand how the Board of this college can let this president stay. Nothing more important in a college President than honesty and integrity and this person failed on both accounts miserably.</p>
<p>Wow, it’s not hard at all to find examples of racism, even on CC.</p>
<p>Does anyone really think the college should have simply dismissed this?</p>
<p>
I can’t imagine that they wanted to get kicked out of school–which was inevitable, considering what they did and their fairly primitive efforts to hide their identities as the perpetrators. That’s what I don’t get about this–did they really think they’d get away with it and not get punished?</p>
<p>Issue is College President finding out the truth in March and not informing the college community(in a classic non-apology apology) until August. In the mean time every white kid and I am sure every college Republican was suspected of being in the KKK.</p>
<p>I recall that a lot of people speculated that this was somebody outside the Oberlin community doing this.</p>
<p>Lookingforward: Sure, there’s racism and anti-Semitism and homophobia all around us. But what this incident demonstrates is how powerless the leadership of Oberlin felt in the face of someone playing the race card. They knew that there weren’t racist or anti-Semites or homophobic gangs going around campus planning the next KKK cross burning, but they felt that going along with the pretense that these things might actually be a current possibility was their best option! They didn’t think that telling the activist student leadership to back down in their demand to shut down classes for a day and run a sit-in
with mandatory breast-beating appearance by the President of the college was possible. </p>
<p>So why was that? It seems to me the possibilities are either that the College leadership was too spineless, or that they read the situation right, and could not successfully stand up to the demands of activist student leadership (and their faculty supporters, especially the multicultural center, whatever it’s name is). Either way, it’s a problem.</p>
<p>I do think the college should have moved the discussion onto a more reality-based path at or before the sit-in day by publishing the facts already made known to them by the Oberlin PD, and by announcing their conclusion that most likely ALL the incidents were perpetrated by the 2 students. They don’t even have to announce the students’ names. Just share the facts. </p>
<p>I don’t know if the right response now is to call for a leadership change at Oberlin, but the mealy-mouthed announcements of the college publicity department on the website justifying their spineless behavior because racism! is just stupid.</p>
<p>Easy to call “spineless” or tell us what they should have done. Many schools are nervous, post VT- and should be.</p>
<p>Hunt - but they did get away with it for weeks on end. The provocative scrawls/flyers/graffiti went on for quite a while before they were caught. So I’d guess they grew emboldened as time went by.</p>
<p>
In my opinion, they were right to be nervous, because they had a couple of sociopaths on campus. This is a different problem than having hate groups on campus. These guys might just as easily have decided to set fires as a “joke.”</p>
<p>I’m a liberal, anti-racist kind of guy, but I think Oberlin played this entirely wrong. If they knew who the perpetrators were, the shutdown and teach-in were pointless, because they addressed a different problem from what the college actually had.</p>
<p>What does Virginia Tech have to do with this? It seems like the lessons of VT are that you should stay aware of the situation of isolated students on campus with major mental health issues (is psycopath still a PC term? I can’t keep up.)</p>
<p>What should they have done? Start with the truth. Even if they were going to give in to the pressure to cancel classes and have a sit-in, at least share the relevant parts of the Police Department’s info at the time (that the perpetrators were Oberlin students, they had already been kicked off campus, and that they PROBABLY were responsible for all the flyers/grafitti.)</p>
<p>To me this is another classic penn state moment. President finds out in March this is a hoax. Uh-oh this is really going to reflect poorly on me and my school so lets try and push it under the rug. Absolutely no consideration for how that decision might affect the student body–the republican kids being tarnished, the black kids on campus who believe that there are dangerous KKK people roaming the campus. No this is all about Oberlin and its reputation. When are these colleges going to learn that you need to do the right thing for heaven’s sake. The president made a huge, unforgiveable mistake and has got to go.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see what the sentiment on campus will be about this. It hasn’t been addressed in the campus newspaper, presumably because it isn’t staffed up yet. There were a lot of opinions in the paper back in March–some of them over the top, but others very reasonable (even addressing the likelihood that this was the work of some tiny minority of people). Of course, lots of people on the outside (especially those who like to point out that the perpetrator was an “Obama-supporting liberal”) will think the president of Oberlin should resign–but people at the college may feel differently.</p>