SHOULD THE TOWER CLOCK YEARBOOKS BE BANNED?
Michael Posner
Buff N Blue Staff
By now everyone should be aware of the fact that the Provost has established a committee to analyze the situation with Tower Clock yearbooks. If you are one of the students who have yet to see the controversial yearbook, in a nutshell, it contained a section called, “Elemental” where things were basically laid out in the same sense as Maxim magazine, sans pictorials of women.
According to the provost, many “parents, students, and alumni” objected to its contents and because of the “amount” of complaints she received as well as the “nature” of the yearbook, she felt a need to cease Tower Clock’s operations as wee as confiscate the yearbooks.
Many students argued that this violated of the first amendment (Freedom of Speech) but by now, we all should be aware that, as a private institution, Gallaudet does hold the legal right to censor materials that are produced using their resources.
If it is being banned because of its contents, then does that mean Gallaudet has to ban the programming that television shows us? I guess that means students can’t watch NYPD Blue, WWF Smackdown, and VIP to name a few. Too lewd for us, I reckon.
A student once remarked, “I don’t want to show the yearbook to my parents. . . because I don’t want them to think that this kind of things happen at Gallaudet.” My response?” These kind of things do happen and if you don’t believe me, then you’re probably assuming that the pictures were altered thanks to the magic of Adobe Photoshop.
Yes, I’m aware of the fact that the materials inside isn’t appropriate for everyone, but then again, a college environment isn’t appropriate for everyone. What? You thought Gallaudet was a campus full of geeky kids who went through seven years of summer camps in southeast Iowa and walks around the campus with shorty-shorts while giggling to some computer-related joke? Don’t forget the thick-rimmed glasses while you’re at it… and if you really want to push it, their mommies still come on campus every two weeks to do their laundry.
I'm also aware that there are deaf institutions that buy the yearbook as well as outside alumni but keep in mind, there’s also another element to the first amendment- freedom of choice. You have a choice whether you want to buy it or not and in that sense, I haven’t heard of a case where a person was harshly beaten for not buying the yearbook. What are you afraid of? Why do people out there think this kind of thing is wrong. You think this reflect a change in the attitude of Gallaudet’s students for the worse?
To be blunt, things have never changed at all. Things have always been the same. In the 1980’s, several yearbooks in California featured pictures of students doing cocaine. Did anyone complain? No, because it reflected what occurred during the time, which is the exact purpose a yearbook should serve.
Sure, there was some sexuality in the yearbook that made it seem as if it was a new phenomenon on campus. The truth is that it never increased at Gallaudet…the amount of things that went on has always remained pretty much the same. The only difference is that people are much more open about it. Don’t blame us. Society has taught us that being open can benefit our human psychology instead of keeping things in an unknown vortex.
Maybe not everyone accepts changes but the way I see it, society is always changing drastically. In the near future, the word “privacy” is going to be eradicated. Get used to it. Get used to the open-mindedness of things. Get used to the fact that things aren’t like walking through a beautiful garden of roses where the beautiful sunshine shines happily on your beautiful white picket fence. As a society, we have always grown to accept changes that are too massive for us to reject. A wise man once told me, “In the real word, there is nothing to hide.”
What exactly is the provost trying to hide from us? And what exactly is denying us the yearbook going to do for us? Is there anyone out there that honestly thinks the yearbook will further “warp our fragile minds?”
I think not. I think the fact that our never-ending curiosity to discover hidden things are what makes our minds corrupt. Research has shown that young adults who call themselves “sexually responsible” comes from a family where sex is a topic that is discussed in an open manner, while a high percentage of adults who admit they don’t consider themselves sexually responsible come from a family where the topic is exclusively taboo.
So let us have the yearbooks back. Let us have a choice whether we want to buy it or not. We’re responsible enough to make the judgments over whether to show it to everyone else or find it inappropriate enough to not even show the devil, himself.
Taking away the yearbooks shows that you don’t trust us, as intelligent beings, to make our own decisions.