[M T]

I hope that all (except maybe one person) of the Stanford community agrees that the apparent hate crime is intolerable.

We should remember that any population may have one or a few individuals that behave in ways that are not acceptable to the majority of that population.  If one student or athlete or coach at a school or in a sport behaves unacceptably, we really shouldn't judge the whole school or sport by those actions.  I hope we're all honest enough with ourselves to recognize that we do tend to use such wide paint brushes, at least before we stop and think.

I recognize that the undergraduate college years are a time when young men and women progress from relative immaturity to adulthood as they transition from the shelter of their parents and home to being out on their own.  Practically by definition, some college students are immature.  Intelligence and maturity seem to be two orthogonal dimensions of individuals.

I would hope that this incident turns out to be some extremely foolish & misguided prank by some immature person rather than an act of someone who truly understands what they were doing.  The fact that this was done as graffiti rather than some more harmful expression of hate gives me hope that the perpetrator does not have the kind of malice that we associate with such symbols.

I would much rather believe there is one foolish person in the Stanford community than there is one who is truly hateful.  There are far too many of the latter in this world expressing their hate in far more destructive ways.

We shall see.

[M T]

I hope that all (except maybe one person) of the Stanford community agrees that the apparent hate crime is intolerable.

We should remember that any population may have one or a few individuals that behave in ways that are not acceptable to the majority of that population.  If one student or athlete or coach at a school or in a sport behaves unacceptably, we really shouldn't judge the whole school or sport by those actions.  I hope we're all honest enough with ourselves to recognize that we do tend to use such wide paint brushes, at least before we stop and think.

I recognize that the undergraduate college years are a time when young men and women progress from relative immaturity to adulthood as they transition from the shelter of their parents and home to being out on their own.  Practically by definition, some college students are immature.  Intelligence and maturity seem to be two orthogonal dimensions of individuals.

I would hope that this incident turns out to be some extremely foolish & misguided prank by some immature person rather than an act of someone who truly understands what they were doing.  The fact that this was done as graffiti rather than some more harmful expression of hate gives me hope that the perpetrator does not have the kind of malice that we associate with such symbols.

I would much rather believe there is one foolish person in the Stanford community than there is one who is truly hateful.  There are far too many of the latter in this world expressing their hate in far more destructive ways.

We shall see.