Saturday, January 29, 2005
VMI students will investigate costume party
Jewish and gay advocacy groups called photos taken during the party disturbing; some cadets dressed as Nazis, drag queens and an African. | What do you think?
"By allowing the Corps to police itself under supervision by the administration, we believe cadets will more readily recognize the inappropriateness of this behavior and see the importance of correcting it," officials of the Lexington college said in a statement Friday. The Officer of the Guard Association, which investigates disciplinary problems, will report its findings to the cadet General Committee. That group will recommend disciplinary measures that must be approved by the administration.
VMI officials learned about the costumes when an Internet user alerted them to photos of the party posted on an online message board.
A cadet originally posted the pictures on a photo-sharing site, webshots.com, believing that access to them required a password, the VMI statement said. Someone else later posted them to a message board operated by the Richmond Independent Media Center. VMI officials said the cadet took down his pictures, but similar photos were still posted Friday evening on the Webshots site.
One picture shows three men in VMI-issued black uniform shirts and gray uniform pants giving the Nazi salute to the camera. Two are wearing swastika armbands. One has a small Hitler-style mustache.
Another photo shows two men in tiaras, wings and eye shadow. Both are wearing underpants and tank tops that read, "I [heart] a man in uniform." There is also a picture of a man in a loincloth wearing dark makeup, and one of a man with a bull's-eye drawn on the rear of his pants.
The cadet-run Halloween event is sanctioned by the administration. A volunteer officer in charge of barracks, usually a faculty or staff member, was also on duty. What actions that officer took during the party is part of the investigation, VMI spokesman Stewart MacInnis said.
Typically, freshman "rats" wear costumes and are taken trick-or-treating by their senior class mentors. The rats aren't supposed to be compelled to wear any costume, MacInnis said.
Jewish and gay advocacy groups, meanwhile, called the pictures disturbing.
"They demonstrate an appalling lack of judgment and a lack of sensitivity to the Holocaust," said Tamar Kipper, assistant director for the Anti-Defamation League's Washington, D.C., office.
"There's nothing funny about gay men and lesbians in uniform right now risking their lives in Iraq," said Dyana Mason, executive director of Equality Virginia. "As future leaders in the military, they [cadets] have to understand you can't make of fun of people at their expense."
Kipper and Mason agreed the incident is best used as an educational opportunity.
Cadets get several hours of training in sensitivity each year. The lessons focus on gender issues but also address race, religion and other differences.
VMI, a public college, admitted blacks in 1968 and women in 1997, but the school continues to be dominated by white men who are overwhelmingly Christian. Fewer than 10 percent of the students are women, and fewer than 20 percent are black. Only a handful are Jewish.
Aaron Gleaton, cadet regimental executive officer, is black but said he wasn't offended by the cadet portraying an African.
"I don't want this incident to mask VMI's image," he said. "This should not be taken as a generalization about the corps."
"It happened in private," said senior Josh Sullivan of Roanoke. "At some point you have to have a sense of humor."
On the Net: www.webshots.com
richmond.indymedia.org
