In the days since the Tufts Alumni Association revoked the Senior Award from Elizabeth Monnin, members of the Tufts and Greater Boston communities have voiced their opinions in local media. The issue became a flashpoint in area newspapers for a larger discourse on everything from the role and etiquette of dissent to the purpose of university education. For example, in a recent Boston Globe letter to the editor ("Peace, Justice, and Leadership at Tufts" 3/26/03), a resident of Brookline disparaged the Tufts Peace and Justice Studies (PJS) Program and, indirectly, Ms. Monnin for being "intellectually vacant." The author urged the Alumni Association to investigate the merits of the PJS program. Lest the Alumni Association decide to heed this poor advice and wield its influence over the PJS program, I wish to refute these derogatory claims and comment on some misguided assumptions that underlie them.
In maligning the PJS program and Ms. Monnin, the Globe letter-writer ventured that she may be "going out on a limb." She was, in three major respects. First, her implication that a person's leadership capacity and moral character can be predicted from her choice of undergraduate major is a tenuous argument at best. Did President Bush's history major, Martin Luther King Jr.'s sociology major, or, for that matter, Osama Bin Laden's reported study of public administration predict their impact on society? If anything, leadership is molded by one's experiences and the passion to extrapolate and articulate a vision. We should honor individuals, like Ms.Monnin, who have consistently demonstrated this ability.
Second, the assumption that Tufts' PJS curriculum ignores the impact of important economic and political forces on peace and social justice is erroneous. Incorporating community service with directed study of political science, international relations, sociology and religion, the PJS curriculum encourages critical analysis of the ways in which social justice can be strengthened. Or, for that matter, of how social justice can also be threatened by some of the very issues the Globe author cares so deeply about, i.e. "free markets, low taxes, a strong national defense," etc.
A careful review of the Bush administration's budget plan highlights the latter point. Bush's proposal, which would cut $265 billion over ten years from programs like food stamps, student loans, and Medicaid while simultaneously offering over $700 billion in tax cuts largely targeted to the richest one percent in our country, serves to highlight how skewed our leader's sense of social justice is in this war-time economy. These plans and the woefully misguided war in Iraq should prompt us not only to participate in dissent and the articulation of alternatives but also to applaud those, like Ms. Monnin, who do.
Finally, the suggestion presented in the Globe to Tufts University's Alumni Association to "consider whether...students are well served by [the PJS] program that is... so intellectually vacant" is baseless and uncivil. The scholars of sociology, history and religion, the human rights and public interest lawyers, the community organizers, the Peace Corps veterans, the doctors and public health advocates, the playwrights, the socially responsible investment bankers, and the schoolteachers who are alumni of the program may not agree with this assessment. Indeed, the current state of affairs domestically and internationally mandates the broader involvement of those engaged in social justice work and research precisely because of their unique intellectual expertise.
When the Alumni Association, a non-representative group of volunteers, revoked a leadership award from a promising Tufts senior based on charges that have not been confirmed, its leadership revealed its own failings and political biases. Rather than insisting that the charges be fully investigated and, in the meanwhile, supporting the student they had once chosen to honor, the organization quickly bent to "worries of alumni." As a Tufts alumnus and former recipient of the Senior Award, I am voicing my own worry and profound disappointment. This decision of the Alumni Association, much like the disparaging remarks presented in the Globe, is unfounded and, by poor example, only reminds us of what good leadership is all about.
Rishi Manchanda (LA'97 Peace and Justice Studies) is a Tufts University MD/MPH Class of 2003.
More from The Tufts Daily
