Shawn Draper rendered a great service to the Bates community last week by starkly illustrating the discrepancy between the egalitarian principles Bates fosters in theory and the failure to realize those principles in practice.

I am concerned, however, that students are construing Shawn's article as a indictment of the administration rather than an indictment of the institution itself. Students can not detach themselves from this institutional structure which has disabled Shawn. As a close friend who is aware of the barriers Shawn faces every day at Bates, I am the most guilty because of my failure to act. For more than three years, I have essentially absolved myself of any personal responsibility for Shawn's predicament on campus.

And with each day that Bates students condone the existence of an inaccessible campus, we stray a little further from the egalitarian promise that precipitated the establishment of this school. For each day that students do not assume collective responsibility for simply making our college an accessible place for all people, we forfeit our right to blame the administration; we allow the problem to persist.

How can this institution justify spending thousands of dollars on fireworks for Back-to-Bates, the harvest dinner, and the college gala, and yet shrug its shoulders when the issue of funding for ramps arises? Why couldn't we simply forgo Harvest Dinner or the college gala this year to facilitate the construction of ramps?

I raise these questions because if we can not answer them effectively as an institution, we have lost any semblance of moral courage.

Sincerely,

David Lieber '98