There is a certain segment of the population on any contemporary college campus that is never satisfied unless it is dissatisfied. So addicted is this small minority to the rush one receives from righteous indignation that, after centuries of moral progress in what is by now a relatively just society, their lives are reduced to a desperate search for sufficiently eye-catching evils to combat. Sweatshops one year, the low wages of University workers the next – while collegiate activism addicts often find themselves fighting real and continuing injustices, their brief battles are mere momentary fads, reduced to being the political equivalent of bellbottoms or boy bands.
In the middle of the 2001 fall fashion season, however – a season which was supposed to bring with it both shorter hemlines and renewed opposition to the IMF – Americans witnessed evil in its purest and most dramatic form. Here, finally, was a genuine need for immediate action. Habitual activists thus joined their fellow students in giving blood and helping to organize aid for the victims of the tragedy, and I applaud them for their good work.
Horrified at for once being part of a moral majority, however, this coterie soon found that the relief effort was insufficient to satisfy its old addiction. A real jolt of righteous indignation, it seems, comes only from a stance directly opposed to that of the American mainstream, or, as they like to call it, the capitalist hegemony. The movementarians needed to find a new, less popular movement for themselves, and sure enough one was to be found with relative ease – a late ’60s classic that never goes out of style, one by the name of “peace.”
Generally speaking, I too am in favor of peace. (For the record, I’m generally well to the left of Joe Lieberman.) Not only would I take a state of peace over a state of war any day, I am also opposed to such military tactics as the invasion of randomly selected developing nations or the wholesale slaughter of their innocent civilians. Except for those with a religiously grounded commitment to absolute pacifism, however, we can all agree that there are times when certain acts of war are both appropriate and just. The vast majority of the American people believe that now is one of those times, and they are right to do so.
Profiling Foreign Students is Rational and Legitimate
Profiling Foreign Students is Rational and Legitimate
Sixty years ago, the United States placed Japanese-, German-, and Italian-Americans in internment camps. Our country has also excluded people of various nationalities simply because we didn’t like “their kind.” The government’s scrutiny of Middle Eastern students in response to September 11 has thus evoked acute suspicions and fears that the Hollywood scenario in “The Siege” will become a reality. Others are concerned that even if internment is a remote possibility, the recent heightened attention toward a group of foreign students amounts to racial profiling. These fears are perfectly reasonable but, thankfully, unsupported by what has happened thus far.
As much as Americans today insist on treating people as individuals, there are some regrettable circumstances in which grouping has legitimate purposes. The Supreme Court has recognized the necessity of grouping by subjecting “inherently suspect” classifications like race to a standard of “strict scrutiny,” while letting classifications with a reasonable purpose pass with “intermediate scrutiny.” Fundamentally, the Court asks whether there is a “rational basis” for a government policy that treats a particular group of people differently. In its recent treatment of foreign students, the government has demonstrated a “rational basis” for measures that group people to meet a pressing state interest while minimizing the violation to individuals’ dignity.
Without casting aspersions on the people and the culture of the region, we cannot deny that the Middle East is a hotbed of fanaticism. Thousands of militants have been indoctrinated by calls for the violent destruction of entire gr…
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…ent has presumed no guilt for the students it has sought records on, and it has neither publicized their names nor allowed universities to notify them because doing so would unduly arouse unnecessary fears of persecution.
Educating foreign students is an important instrument of American foreign policy. Foreign students act as dual ambassadors, fostering better understanding between the citizens of their countries of origin and those of the United States. They bring elements of their culture to America while taking elements of our culture home to their societies. However, we must remember that this enlightened policy is open to abuse. Recent government actions with regard to foreign students amount not to racial profiling, but rather to plugging the holes in the system so that we may continue this valuable cultural and educational exchange program.