Dear Clubs of Gettysburg College and Administration,
It is currently May 3 and I have four papers and an art piece on my plate due in the next two days. I am dying and injecting coffee into my body as much as I can. I love my work, I love this college, and I love the students around me. You’re great and I’m glad to see you active and motivated.
I’ve seen so many pieces and distractions and lectures about this Robert Spencer controversy, and while I have my thoughts (you may know them), I have to tell you that there is a lesson that needs to be learned here. You know what that lesson is?
Time it better. Time all political and controversial events better. Pick the middle of March. Pick late January. Pick early February. Pick anything else other than now. I want to care about my community and the Muslim students on campus and I want to get my work done, and I feel like I’m being forced to choose between the two, or compromise by bringing my laptop out to the rally and not be an active and listening participant like I want to be, which is probably not the best thing for the rally.
Administration, senate, you had a fantastic excuse to tell YAF no about their event, in that it has generated a giant distraction during the last week of classes when work is at its heaviest. No one can really argue free speech about that logic. Work distractions at the busiest time of year is the worst thing you could have done. You chose not to use it, and now we have Luke Frigon, Michael Mancuso, myself, and the members of the Gettysburgian staff wasting their own time writing editorials and opinion pieces about a political member that should have come at any other time of the year. We also have a closed coffee shop thanks to additional security for Robert Spencer.
The club should have known better. The Senate should have known better. The administration should have known better.
Clubs, for future reference, pick a different time for a speaker please, for everyone’s sakes. Let me and the rest of the campus community work in slightly more peace. I’m sad and buried under papers, and I’m going to get back to that now.
Peace, love, thank you,
Brittany Russell
