People are frequently faced with complicated situations that require thorough investigation in order to determine the morally correct decision. Wesleyan students are often the first to offer their opinions in these situations, and this tendency towards debate is generally welcome.
Rarely in life are people presented with a situation where the right answer is perfectly clear, where there is no need for debate. The Senior Cocks “dilemma,” which proposes to donate the $15,000 allotted for this semester’s first senior cocktails to Haiti relief efforts, is one of those opportunities.

Even so, there are people at Wesleyan who take issue with the proposal, one of whom outlined her reasons for voting “no” in a recent Wesleying post. These objections are stated below:

Three days is not enough time to vote on the proposal.

Anyone (who received the link on Facebook or via e-mail) could vote on the proposal, and the only people who should be able to vote are the students whose money is in the cocktails fund.

Yes or No is not enough, there should be more options in the survey in order to spark discussion. Apparently, the lack of choices may be “insulting to [seniors’] intelligence and ability to think in more nuanced ways about issues.”

The proposal makes Senior Cocks appear frivolous.

The fact that the proposal was submitted indicates that the senior class officers (who conceived of the idea in the first place) think Senior Cocks is just about drinking, when, in fact, it is also about class bonding.

There should be efforts to include the entire senior class, perhaps by still having cocktails in February and then giving seniors the choice of whether to donate at the event.

If students did not pay with the original intention of donating to a charity fund, they should not be pressured to do so.

Most of these are fine intellectual objections to the proposal. However, this is not the time to be intellectualizing. This is not the time to be concerned about minute flaws in a plan that will give $15,000 to relief efforts in Haiti, especially since there are five more senior cocktail parties scheduled.

Instead of fixating on complaints that are, in the grand scheme of things, rather petty, Wesleyan students should not squander this excellent opportunity to make the clearly morally right decision. To us, it’s as easy as voting “yes.”