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E D I T O R I A L S:



Supreme Decision
Re-evaluating Zeke

Supreme Decision

On Tuesday, Nov. 28, the United States Supreme Court made a decision that takes a huge step in protecting Americansą right to privacy. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that the Indianapolis police were acting in violation of the Fourth Amendment by establishing checkpoints to stop cars and search them for drugs in an effort to slow down narcotics trafficking in the city. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 29, during these random stops a drug-sniffing dog would circle the car with a police officer and if either the officer or the dog detected anything suspicious the car would then be pulled aside and searched.

The court rightfully realized that these searches were an unacceptable violation of motoristsą constitutional rights. Nobody, driving or not, should be subject to random searches when there is no suspicion that the individual committed a crime. By rejecting the idea that the drug war must be won no matter what the costs, the justices who voted against the stops (Sandra Day OąConnor, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer) have helped ensure that police only stop and harass individuals if they have reasonable cause to suspect they have committed a crime.

Hopefully, this is part of a wider shift in public and government opinion towards ending law enforcement practices which violate the constitution and harass individuals without evidence of wrongdoing. A shift in ideology regarding whether or not the police can summarily search a car without any immediate need could translate to a possible elimination of other unconstitutional practices as well. With the recent publicity given to the subject of racial profiling and the admission by governments and law enforcement agencies all over the country that there is some sort of institutionalized practice of disproportionately targeting members of specific races and ethnicities, it has become clear that police authority has gone unchecked too often for too long. By insisting that police must have an individual, specific basis for suspicion in the Indianapolis case, the Court has taken a step to give citizens a reason not be afraid of the police, and to feel secure that their privacy will stay intact.


Re-evaluating Zeke

Does Oberlin need a łsanctuary for testosterone,˛ or estrogen, for that matter? Yes, in a sense. Just as there are safe spaces for women to live away from men, there should be areas for men who wish to live away from females. As articulated by a resident of Zechiel Hall in an article in this weekąs Review, the dorm represents the only all-male santuary on campus, which is akin to Baldwin, the only all-female dorm at Oberlin.

What does that mean? Is there nowhere else a male can go on campus without feeling threatened? If this is the case, then the drive shouldnąt be to integrate women into the dorm but to address the underlying problem that males feel insecure in other areas of the campus. Nevertheless, whether or not males feel discomfort due to their gender, it is unlikely that the atmosphere that exists at Zeke provides the sense of community and security that some men may be seeking. If it did, and male students felt there was a threat to testosterone on the rest of the campus, wouldnąt there be greater demand to live at Zeke?

Of course there would. The fact that there is not suggests that the community that clearly does exist at Zeke is not the sort of community that appeals to Oberlin males in general. Perhaps they do not feel the need to flaunt their testosterone in order to feel secure about their gender ‹ and everybody who lives there probably doesnąt feel that way either. Inhabitants of the dorm may feel a sense of community after living there, but that happens in many dorms as a result of individuals forming relationships and bonds with one another, especially in smaller dorms such as Zeke.

Why should the school, faced with persistent housing crises, continue to support the all-male program in Zeke when the community that exists there does not provide an atmosphere in which a majority of males ‹ the community it is intended for ‹ would feel comfortable? This is further compounded by the fact that a huge proportion of the students who live in Zeke are athletes, while a small percentage of the male population, as well as that of all students, makes athletics a priority. It is highly conceivable that those students who are not athletes but would like to live in an all-male setting may feel that Zeke simply replaces one sense of marginalization with another.

The argument that males should have access to a space that consists only of men if women have access to a space that consists only of women is valid. However, the space that is currently devoted to men is clearly not attractive to the student body and does not provide the security and sense of comfort that a safe space is intended to provide. The program at Zeke must be re-evaluated because it no longer serves the purpose it was intended for.


Editorials in this box are the responsibility of the editor-in-chief, managing editor and commentary editor, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

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T H E   O B E R L I N   R E V I E W

Copyright © 2000, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 129, Number 10, December 1, 2000

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