2008 Woodie Awards
Reader's Forum
Misdirected anger and guilt by association frustrates freshman
Sheryl McCabe
Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: Opinion
To the Editor:
It's been tough for me since I came back to Drew University. I have been caught in the middle of a tiff between the Acorn staff and friends of a student who was arrested last semester, Kaitlin Peterson.
Last Friday, after issues of The Acorn were delivered to the Commons, a group of Peterson's friends stole the issues and disposed of them outside the Townhouses after seeing that an article was printed about their friend.
Peterson had lived on my floor in Tolley. I knew her as "K.P." We weren't close, but we hung out with the same group of people. When she was arrested, the entire floor seemed to fall apart and become defensive of what had happened to their friend. There's been a feeling of injustice and anger of how and why she got arrested. After the article came out, there was anger toward what they saw as an invasive and judgmental entity.
As a member of The Acorn, a lot of frustrations were cast toward my end of the hallway. My roommate and I don't have many kind and calm conversations anymore due to the incident.
Many of my friends, who were also friends with K.P., have taken the side of being angry and frustrated over keeping their friendship with me. That leaves me, on a very emotionally charged floor, torn by the people who I care about and have turned their backs on me and the people I work very closely with and who are deeply concerned about my stressful living conditions.
I want to say that I agree with my former friends-that what happened to K.P. was an injustice, and I do believe that Chief Evans did indeed lie to the reporter of that controversial article on a number of counts.
However, K.P. was breaking the law by having those drugs in her room, despite whether or not Public Safety had the wrong person for an incident that she wasn't involved with.
She has to take responsibility of the substances that she had in her possession. It doesn't matter if you don't think a law should be in existence, the law is the law.
It's been tough for me since I came back to Drew University. I have been caught in the middle of a tiff between the Acorn staff and friends of a student who was arrested last semester, Kaitlin Peterson.
Last Friday, after issues of The Acorn were delivered to the Commons, a group of Peterson's friends stole the issues and disposed of them outside the Townhouses after seeing that an article was printed about their friend.
Peterson had lived on my floor in Tolley. I knew her as "K.P." We weren't close, but we hung out with the same group of people. When she was arrested, the entire floor seemed to fall apart and become defensive of what had happened to their friend. There's been a feeling of injustice and anger of how and why she got arrested. After the article came out, there was anger toward what they saw as an invasive and judgmental entity.
As a member of The Acorn, a lot of frustrations were cast toward my end of the hallway. My roommate and I don't have many kind and calm conversations anymore due to the incident.
Many of my friends, who were also friends with K.P., have taken the side of being angry and frustrated over keeping their friendship with me. That leaves me, on a very emotionally charged floor, torn by the people who I care about and have turned their backs on me and the people I work very closely with and who are deeply concerned about my stressful living conditions.
I want to say that I agree with my former friends-that what happened to K.P. was an injustice, and I do believe that Chief Evans did indeed lie to the reporter of that controversial article on a number of counts.
However, K.P. was breaking the law by having those drugs in her room, despite whether or not Public Safety had the wrong person for an incident that she wasn't involved with.
She has to take responsibility of the substances that she had in her possession. It doesn't matter if you don't think a law should be in existence, the law is the law.
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