OPINION:
The scrawling of a pro-Trump message on a whiteboard affixed to a student’s door so offended the Scripps College student body president that she sent a campus-wide email denouncing the incident as “racist” (“Scripps College student government censures ’racist’ pro-Trump message,” Web, March 28). The written phase: “#trump2016.”
While I realize that education has greatly changed in recent years, I believe the meaning of the word “racist” still implies a serious degree of negativity. Unless the hashtag symbol has also changed over time, I am quite confused as to the reason for fear over this scrawling.
The Times piece on the incident says that the student body president “said the dry-erase-marker defacement is evidence that racism continues to fester at the Southern California all-women’s college.” I am sorry that dry-erase markers so terrorize young adults in colleges today. Perhaps we should go back to pencils with erasers. The meaning of certain words and symbols — including the definitions of the number sign or hashtag and “racism” — seems to have escaped their knowledge.
My advice to parents about to send their children to university: Save your money.
JACQUELINE A. POSTAL
Silver Spring
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