Change takes an entire community
This is the Our View, prepared by the Editorial Board and the institutional voice of The Record.
A lot has transpired since our initial coverage of the Pat Hall situation in last week’s edition. Administration hired a law firm to investigate the allegations, IWL has organized a sit-in and countless students and organizations have spoken up. The floodgates are open. A number of letters and opinions have come in from students, professors and alumni alike.
The amount of broad support is a good sign. People are speaking up and some change may come of these allegations. It’s unfortunate that it took a scandal to generate this amount of community engagement and organizing, but it’s heartening to see members of the campus community rallying to make this place better and safer for everyone.
Crucially, these efforts can’t die out. Creating change on campus will take consistent effort by everyone, including Johnnies, Bennies, faculty and administration. The layers that allowed a competition like this to take place remain present in our community. If this culture is funny to you, realize most people around here aren’t laughing.
As one of our editors was entering the Refectory this evening, they overheard a Johnnie tell his friends, “if this Pat situation turns into big news, I’m going to laugh my ass off.” This is the kind of mindset that leads to law firms investigating campus misconduct. This is already big news. The Associated Press has picked up the story and news sources such as the StarTribune, WCCO, Minnesota Public Radio and more have published. Clearly this is a situation that is deseving of a conversation. Let’s make sure this is the start of a broader conversation, not the end.
A sexual competition among Johnnies is an issue that needs to be addressed, and discomfort is needed to effect change. We received some comments criticizing the front page placement of the Pat Hall scandal story on Family Weekend. In regard to those comments, we ask what would motivate us to intentionally bury these allegations and whose interests that would serve?
Keep this momentum going and keep speaking up about injustices. Change takes an entire community, and all of us need to contribute to these efforts. Doing nothing only lets these attitudes and behaviors continue to fester, and a community that isn’t welcoming to every one of us isn’t a community at all.