Select 2000 is an initiative adopted by the University for the purpose of improving all aspects of our greek system. The administration claims that this program is necessary in order to elevate greeks to the social and academic levels of achievement that meet the expectations of the University and the community. The plan includes a permanent ban of alcohol from all fraternity houses, the maintenance of a greek grade point average that is higher than the University average and mandatory community service for all greeks.

These new decrees have been implemented at SIUC without the consent (a vote) of the greek students upon whom Select 2000 already is being applied.

Now, I know that the Inter-Fraternity Council and Undergraduate Student Government have disagreements with this plan. They say we should be able to drink in our own homes if we are of legal age. They want us to be able to have parties at our houses. And, of course, they think that academic standards for greeks can be regulated more effectively by each house individually, rather than by a cog in SIUC’s administrative bureaucracy (Student Development).

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So in a very basic sense, Gus Bode was right on in his cartoon last week. They essentially are fighting for their right to party. But, they also are fighting for something else. They are fighting for something far more important than the privilege to get low grades and have all-night beer bashes. They are fighting for the right of the individual to make his own choices under the law. This is one of the most important and basic rights that citizens deserve, and it is enjoyed nearly everywhere in the United States.

But now the University is attempting to strip that freedom from several hundred of its students. And for what reason? Necessity is its claim. William Pitt once said, Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.

So is this what is to become of us? The University will play the role of the overbearing tyrant, and we, the students, will be the subjugated slaves obeying their every command?

Let us venture a step further. Do you think that the administrations of every other school in the country are watching with yearning eyes as SIUC attempts to cut the heart of our rights as students? This is a precedent that would quell any small attempt that we, as students, have ever made to humble the high-handed nature of university authority. We cannot simply hand over our freedom because they have merely said that they are taking it! If we are the men that administration claims it wants us to be, then we will not roll over and allow our freedom to be seized.

I will close with one of my all-time favorite quotes from Dwight Eisenhower:I call upon all who love freedom to stand with us now. Together we shall achieve victory.