On Sunday, October 12, three swastikas were chalked on the sidewalk on Old Campus. Dean Holloway, the next day, sent a campus-wide email condemning this act, affirming a campus culture that values respectful openness, and asking those with information to come forward. This situation presents us with the difficult question of how we ought to deal with offensive but anonymous acts of defacement based in hatred. Sure, community-wide and public condemnation of such acts and promotion of more positive and respectful attitudes are important first steps, but can we prevent these situations from occurring in the future?

Leonard Schleifer, the CEO of Regeneron, is a billionaire. Regeneron, a global, extremely successful biotech company, has seen the best performance in the S&P 500 for the past three years. A little unknown fact about Schleifer though is that he started out operating a small snow-shoveling business.  This surprising revelation led me to begin thinking about the “rags-to-riches” dream associated with the United States. Specifically, I began to wonder whether or not it would be fair to say this dream still exists today. Sure, we haven’t fully pulled out of the economic downturn. Sure, there are vast differences between the wealth of the very wealthy and the very poor. Sure there are many Americans receiving welfare assistance and food stamps. All of that aside, I believe that to an extent, this traditional American dream most certainly still exists.

This year, President Salovey’s Freshman Address was on free expression. His speech focused on a report on that topic written by a committee appointed by President Kingman Brewster. Notable among the members of the committee was Professor Woodward, Sterling Professor of History and scholar of the American South. Salovey remarked “…it is important on occasions like this one to remind ourselves why unfettered expression is so essential on a university campus.” I wholeheartedly agree. Nonetheless, while it is true that free expression is on the defensive today, I think the more interesting phenomenon is the increasing social stigma attached to expressing views that are unpopular, different, or simply as of yet not well articulated and explained.