How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
Last month, Georgetown students chained themselves to a campus statue to protest the university's policy against distributing free contraceptives on campus. The WSN Editorial Board thinks the policy they are protesting is indeed antiquated, at least on the campus of a major American university. We think it is important for condoms and other contraceptives, as well as sex-themed events, workshops and services, to proliferate on campuses.
In 1789 Georgetown was founded as a Catholic university, and while its current student body may practice — or not practice — a variety of faiths, its administration has stated that it plans to remain committed to the ideals upon which the college was established. One of these values is the Catholic condemnation of contraceptives and pre-marital sex.
Private universities like Georgetown retain the legal right to make those decisions. There is no legal statute that would require a traditionally Catholic university to make free contraceptives available on its campus — and there shouldn't be. But it is perhaps more important that, given the activities of modern-day students, universities establish a balance between founding principles and operational reality.
Georgetown's administration is surely aware of the statistics that condoms and condom distribution decrease STI proliferation. But because of the university's decision to stick with its founding values, it seems that the university and the protesters have reached an impasse. This could be resolved by student action without university funding, now that protesting seems to have made its point and concluded its usefulness.
We don't know the moral consensus of Georgetown students, but the administration in Washington, D.C., hopefully does. Universities have to stick by their rooted values and ideals, but they also need to evolve as their student body and the world around them does. Obviously, Georgetown is a Jesuit school and should not compromise the mission its founders set out. But there must be room to accommodate the needs of its students. 1789 is, after all, quite a long time ago.
