As a co-founder of DePauw's chapter of Young Americans for Liberty - which grew out of Students for Ron Paul back in 2008 - I've stayed updated with the goings-on at DePauw and was excited to learn that Dr. Paul was coming to the university to speak, thanks to the Ubben family. However, I was terribly disappointed and, frankly, disgusted by the severe lack of consistency and concrete journalism in Tuesday's piece: "Ron Paul and DePauw: Guilty by Association".
Not only are the accusations against 11-term congressman and 3-time presidential nominee weak at best, they also contain logic that The DePauw's Editorial Board fails to apply to other public figures in America.
Let's say for the sake of argument that Dr. Paul can be considered a racist, using The Depauw's "guilty by association" logic. (This weak allegation can easily be annulled by the fact that he has held a strong stance on freedom and minority rights for over a half-century.) But let's say he is guilty by association. We'd then have to apply the same syllogism to other prominent public figures, let's say, President Obama.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who included several controversial and racist remarks in his sermons, is the former pastor of President Obama and his family. Bill Ayers, the former leader of the militant group the Weather Underground that has bombed various governmental buildings, is also a good friend of the Obama's.
President Obama must then condone the behavior of those individuals and, by proxy, be guilty of their remarks and crimes since he has past - and present - associations with them.
President Obama hasn't spoken at DePauw yet, nor are there plans for him to give a lecture in the future. But using the logic applied by The DePauw's Editorial Board, he is equally guilty by association just the Board claims Ron Paul is.
If I were a DePauw Administrator or a member of the Ubben family, I would be extremely insulted by Tuesday's editorial and ashamed of its absurd distortion of the language of our nation's First Amendment.