EDITORIAL Beyond Compliance and Tolerable Dialogue

Author: [no author name found]

Beyond Compliance

It takes little more than a sprained ankle and a pair of crutches to know the difficulty of navigating this campus. Doors are heavy, stairs are many and the hills, when icy, are dangerous to even those without physical disabilities. Some of these elements cannot be changed: It would be highly unrealistic, for example, to demand that College administrators alter the grade of the steep slopes that define our campus. But it is realistic, however, to demand that Middlebury not only be accessible to all, but that the institution go above and beyond simple compliance with accessibility laws.

Currently College buildings are woefully inadequate for students, faculty, staff and visitors with large, small, temporary or permanent physical disabilities. Buildings equipped with handicapped-accessible ramps, doorways or restrooms often have these features inconveniently located (McCullough and Proctor are two glaring examples) or are highly impractical (the buttons that open the doors of Bicentennial Hall, for example, are hard to press down for elderly visitors with weak hands).

Oversights like these are embarrassing, and should be addressed immediately by all involved in the physical and architectural planning of our campus. The new Library and Technology Center and Atwater Commons should be shining examples of a renewed commitment to universal accessibility, one that outlives the valiant efforts of Class of 2002 members to establish an Americans with Disabilities Act fund for members of the College community. Existing buildings should be evaluated for improved access, and retrofitted accordingly with ramps, elevators or wheelchair lifts. For a campus that readily commits to green building principles and excellence in academics, making the College a place without obstacles is not just an attractive idea, but a true necessity.



Tolerable Dialogue

A spate of racist remarks on the middkid.com and DailyJolt.com Web sites are just the latest instances of anonymous prejudice manifested so devastatingly in the destruction of the Middlebury Open Queer Alliance closet last month. The remarks, which appear in both sites' online forums, cast an embarrassing and dark shadow over the nature of respectful dialogue at Middlebury.

The administrators of these Web sites, some of whom are Middlebury alumni, should move quickly to remove the remarks, particularly those that specifically target individuals. After doing so those that run the DailyJolt.com and middkid.com should revise and openly state the guidelines for tolerable discussion of campus issues, in the hope that future conversation will not only be substantive but reflective of the values that we associate so dearly with a liberal arts education.

If comments like these appear again without prompt action by Web site administrators, we as a community must question whether the sites have outlived their usefulness — or can be changed for the better. To do so would not question the value of the Web sites as venues for free expression, but rather examine the sometimes sinister manifestation that freedom assumes.