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You can lead a kid to college, but you can't make him think
By adamg on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 10:10pm
So City Council President Mike Ross wants to require local colleges to help the city figure out if more than four students are living in apartment, because it seems that since the city passed its five-students-and-you're-out regulation, not a single student swarm has been broken up, since ISD can't legally tell who's a student and who isn't.
Paul Flannery passes along word that the student paper at Emerson editorialized that this is just the sort of thing Hitler would have done:
Suppose some Boston city councilor proposed to ban more than four gay people from living together, claiming that such large gatherings of gays was a public nuisance. Or imagine if a councilor proposed such a Gestapo-like imposition on the city's Jews, or such a nouveau-Jim-Crow decree on Boston's blacks. ...
If the council president is serious about his cap on coed cohabitation, history provides a number of examples from effective tyrants. For instance, forget forcing colleges to report off-campus students' addresses. Hitler had Warsaw's Jews wear armbands for easy identification by the SS. Tattoos were effective, too.
Yeah, that's just what the son of a man who survived ten Nazi concentration camps while the rest of his family was wiped out would do. But, hey, Emerson teaches kids how to be DJs on indie FM stations, not how to do research or make rational arguments.
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Comments
Who are we ragging on here?
Who are we ragging on here? Mike Ross is clearly the man who missed out on economics 101.
"if there are 6 students in an apartment, clearly forcing two of them to demand a new residence will lower rents"!
There are rational arguments to be made against Ross's plan
Comparing it to the Warsaw Ghetto isn't one of them, however.
Agreed
Ross is engaging in some ugly discrimination for political gain...but not that ugly.
and don't forget this brilliant comment
left on the Emerson paper's website:
If the newspaper has a faculty adviser, hopefully that individual will sit down with them and explain how to write an editorial that doesn't sound like the left-wing edition of the comments posted to the Herald website.
Just typical student paper op-ed on issue students care about...
...written by students, for students, using rhetoric to appeal to average students.
I think one thing to keep in mind with undergrad student audience is that there's collectively (though not universally) an implied sense of marginalization. The school and governments treat them as children, when they know better how things should work and/or they want to be left alone to do their substances and their classmates, they think.
Whether or not one agrees that undergrads are marginalized, assume that they might feel that way, and then what they say is more understandable.
Over-the-top Nazi analogy was weak and cliche. But, oh, they should have appreciated the especial sensitivity in this case! Big fudge-up for a real paper, oh-well-annual-learning-experience for a student paper.
The college experience is supposed to include a safe environment for learning and experimentation. Kinda hard to do that when everything is broadcast and recorded for the outside world.
Not that I want to defend undergrads, since they really need to be smacked around more than they are. In a safe, nurturing, constructive sort of way.
City Council President routinely deflects, delays, denies...
Our Boston City Council President routinely deflects, delays, denies enquiries for Council public records. It's not enough for a Council President to merely to enunciate principles of sunshine open public meetings, FOI Freedom of Information public records, transparency, open government. Putting principles into practice appears to be problematical for a Council President and the hundred or so Boston City Council staff.
Oh nice The fastest way to
Oh nice
The fastest way to get people on your side of an argument is to bring up the NATZIS.
Glad to see they stayed away from the sensational.
I call Godwin's Law
While there may well be plenty of arguments against Mike Ross' plan, waving the Nazi flag of horrific discrimination - even in jest - is a dumb idea. Given Mike's actual history with the Holocaust, it's such a dumb idea as to subject the editorialists to ridicule and to ignore them (until they either grow up a bit or apologize).
Sigh.
(Ah, I see someone on their message board called Godwin's Law as well.)
Inappropriate analogy obscures the broader point
I will concede that Emerson's analogy in the context of Ross' family history was in poor taste, but the broader point that Ross attempts to subvert the rights of adult renters - because they are students - is unfortunately obscured by this controversy.
On this issue, Mike Ross has exposed himself as a NIMBY-pandering, hypocrite....essentially, the ultimate politician. While he collects checks from Suffolk University to teach Government courses (and maybe a tuition discount at Suffolk Law??), Mike Ross passes himself off as someone who respects and wants to aid students; yet, he really only feels this way when it gets him a paycheck...not when it comes to respecting the basic rights of those same students he teaches.
How can his latest crusade even be defended? Why should students who've never misbehaved have to be disclosed to the City of Boston?
How can it be defended?
Yesterday: not very well at all.
Today: "They called him a Nazi. His father disagrees."
Agreed that the real shame
Agreed that the real shame about this over-the-top reference is that it is taking attention away from the real issues the editorial was intending to address.
I wrote more in depth about the situation at Beantown University - http://beantownuniversity.blogspot.com/2009/02/no-...
I hope we hear response from the Berkeley Beacon in regards to this as part of the lesson should be owning your mistakes.
I think the Nazi reference
I think the Nazi reference is over the top, but that the ordinance specifically targets undergrads disgusts me. Can more than four 18-22 year olds who don't attend college live together? Of course - because to say otherwise would be age discrimination. Ross just picks on the college kids because he can, and because most aren't registered to vote here so he doesn't have to worry about pissing off his constituents.
As a former Brighton resident ...
I think it's a legitimate issue - actual taxpaying residents shouldn't have to put up with crap night after night from out-of-town college students (your view of the world changes a lot when you have to be up early for a meeting and the kids upstairs think Tuesday night is just great for a party).
Whether the answer is something like Ross's plan (ISD should be in the business of enforcing occupancy limits in general, not laws targeting students specifically perhaps) or just greater police presence (both BPD and local colleges), I don't know. But I don't think he's targeting students just so he can not piss off constituents.
Eh, make no mistake, I have
Eh, make no mistake, I have serious disdain for the party all night college students myself (despite being a student - I often have to be up early for work and whatnot myself), but I really don't think limiting number of residents solves the problem. People will just have more guests over for parties. Noisy neighbours irritate me, but I don't think that's a problem this ordinance solves.
Its a step in the right
Its a step in the right direction
Don't be hating on Emerson.
Don't be hating on Emerson. Most of the kids there think the Beacon is a joke anyway (I should know...I used to write for it).
The editorial was definitely in poor taste and shows bad judgment. I'm surprised the managing eds let it through... but then again, the learning process is the whole point of a student newspaper.
The greater issue here is still Councilor Ross' discrimination against students.
Limiting the amount of students in an apartment is not going to solve any problems about loud parties. When someone has a noisy party, obviously most of the kids present don't live there!
Eventually this will become a non-issue because the bill violates federal law.
Sincerely,
An Emerson journalism major that has "learned how to research and make rational arguments"