2008-08-10 - 10:00 a.m.
I was starting to write a very different-toned entry from the one I�m writing now. I was all filled with piss and vinegar. I was going to say how I was simultaneously so ticked off and so jazzed; so fired up in both ways. I still am really jazzed about the responding actions what happened has �inspired� me to take (although the word �inspired� implies there�s some positivity in this).
I guess I�m still ticked off, but the target of my anger has changed. The fact is that Brown University, liberal bastion and home to a committee to investigate its own role in the slave trade hundreds of years ago, is being investigated by the federal Department of Education for discrimination. Right now. Why aren�t RUEs and transfer students and international students given the same �universal� need-blind admissions as other students? No doubt to save a few bucks, but beyond that I can only speculate�
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most RUEs are over 25 (the age when the brain - though of course not the mind - finishes fully forming) are less likely, when asked to jump, to say �Yes sir! How high?� than to question it (this may also be why most wars are fought in the trenches by pliant young people, but I digress...). To go to college as an adult, you really have to want it.
Despite this and the fact that getting accepted as an older student is even harder than as a regular-age undergrad, some buy the myth that RUEs don�t really �deserve� to be there. That we�re part of some sort of community outreach program. That we�re just not as bright as other students. (Indeed, some RUEs have themselves internalized this thinking and �go underground�, hiding their real age out of perceived shame.)
But age-discrimination against RUEs isn�t even half the story. It�s not even a third of the story given the other two groups that are �universal� need-blind ineligible. I was going to write about how my friend had to join the Army to make tuition when he didn�t get �universal� financial aid. While he was in Iraq, his wife (whose real name I don�t know, nor am I sure I want to know it, but using names makes things more personal) Angela commited suicide.
I was going to end this piece by noting that if my friend had been given financial aid, he would not have joined the Army. If he had not signed up, he would not have been sent to Iraq. If he were not away in Iraq, Angela would still be alive. I was going to say that it wasn�t like I was saying Brown killed Angela. But I was going to end by saying that maybe I actually was.
Except here�s the thing. The more I consider it, the more I think Brown didn�t kill Angela. As with most bad things, the System did it. W. did it. The media did it. People�s bizarre obsession with oil and the Middle East did it. In short, it was the work of the Man. Brown University, for all its leftist leanings and artsiness, is ultimately a part of the Ivy League, certainly a central part of the System.
But I don�t know if I�m assessing things right or just making excuses for a place I love. Can you email me with the link to the left and let me know what you think?
� 2008 Geoff Gladstone
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