Matt Holford and Josh Robinson were obviously wrong and misguided Wednesday morning. It is blindingly stupid to get completely wasted and then go rampaging through a dorm that you had been kicked out of only a few weeks earlier. Instead of writing obscenities on an RC's door (talk about shooting the messenger) the two could just as easily have gone to Charlene Cole-Newkirk and said, "we're more trouble than we're worth, please punish us." They could have gotten the same results, but one guesses it just wouldn't have been as much fun.
At the same time, no matter how big of a moron the school is dealing with, there is no excuse for not following due process. Josh Robinson had not been in trouble with Oberlin's administration before the night he tore through South. Thus, since he was not on probation, there was no grounds for his suspension.
Much of the campus recognizes that Holford and Robinson went off the deep end on this one. At the same time, a large percentage of students are also concerned that Cole-Newkirk is going way overboard in her apparent persecution of drug users.
The campus should recognize that Holford and Robinson deserve some form of reprisal. If the administration, however, is not going to follow correct procedures, then any support it could hope to muster will be dashed from the start. Suspending Robinson without a period of probation only serves to heighten the suspicion that many students already have of Cole-Newkirk.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 22; April 26, 1996
Contact Review webmaster with suggestions or comments at ocreview@www.oberlin.edu.
Contact Review editorial staff at oreview@oberlin.edu.