The recent news that the festival everyone calls Zonker Harris Day will officially be called Zonker Harris Day again is a sad reminder of the administration’s long and insidious campaign to destroy everything we love about Wesleyan. First President Roth apologized for making the new policy on off-campus housing overly broad, and now this. What’s next? Will we be allowed to drink anywhere we want on campus property again in open defiance of local law? Will we be able to smoke weed on Foss Hill in broad daylight without any repercussions? I came to Wesleyan because I wanted to be part of a community of self-absorbed whiners. The administration’s attempt to deny students things to complain about by giving into complaints is a chilling encroachment on our freedoms, and it makes me wonder why I didn’t just go to Amherst.
When I first came to Wesleyan four years ago, it seemed like a golden age of whining. I remember in my first few days on campus there were members of my class bitching about how the ban on chalking had robbed Wesleyan of its unique character, even though they had never actually been on the campus when chalking was common. I still have fond memories of self-described anarchists who distributed manifestos about how squares are oppressive and thought that showing their asses in public constituted an emancipatory. I enjoyed semi-coherent lectures that treated the relationship between students and administrators like that between labor and capital. I loved hearing whispered conspiracy theories about how Roth was planning to crush student power because a show got shut down due to the fact that the band had brought alcohol into WestCo cafe in violation of their contract.
Now some of that Wesleyan spirit is still alive. We still have a few heroes who are willing to stage protests in the name of Freedom because the administration is trying to exert some authority over a fraternity that had clearly demonstrated that it was unsafe. And the legitimate anger that the silly new admissions website provoked last year was somewhat encouraging. But I can’t help feeling like students these days have lost their sense of smug entitlement to spend four years in drug-induced stupor before their social networks sweep them up into the liberal professions. It’s probably because the admissions office has deliberately adulterated Wesleyan culture by admitting more and more students from outside the haute bourgeoisie of the New York metro area.
So, fellow students, I urge you to help preserve the Wesleyan student body’s proud tradition of insufferable bellyaching. Whining about Zonker Harris Day (and especially, defiant declaration that “I still call it Zonker Harris Day”) has been an important part of campus culture since my first year at this school. We must demand that the administration implement more perfectly reasonable policies for us to get up in arms about. To that end, please join Wesleyan Students for Freedom’s die-in in Usdan on Monday.
Wohl is a member of the class of 2011.
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