Chapter II: The Half-Way Point

This morning I saw the transcript of a Piers Morgan's "interview" (read: demoralization) of Larry Pratt, the Executive Director for Gun Owners of America. I have also seen pro-gun rumblings, no longer stifled by the fog of tragedy, reappear on social media and in conversation. In yet another attempt to continue entertaining alternative perspectives on gun control, I read, listened and thought deeply about the overarching opinions that these comments and conversations yielded. And if I understand correctly, people are slowly and quietly standing back up about their right to privately pack heat for self-defense. 

Now some have taken a milder approach, alluding to situations where average citizens have successfully protected themselves and their families from criminals by employing a hand gun or average magazine rifle. And in all honesty, as much as I would love to see fire arms eradicated from private ownership for good and forever, I accept that individuals want, and sometimes need, their smaller, yet still powerful guns by their sides. To be clear, I still see the blatant risk for these guns being out on the streets, as even when owned for the sake of self-defense, these weapons can end up in the wrong hands. And even with their lower bullet-firing capacity, they can still be used by criminals to wrongfully kill innocent people. But I am also aware that owning a gun is not just a source of pride or the signature of a potential criminal, but is oftentimes the one thing that helps a parent sleep soundly at night - the one thing capable of saving lives in otherwise lethal situations. Even with the many economical arguments made about the lack of a correlation between gun ownership and gun crime, as humans this notion simply makes sense.

Yet, what has disturbed me about the pro-gun rumblings that have loudened in the past day or two, are those people who refuse to see the value in at least minimizing the level of fire power in the guns that are available to the general public. There are people in powerful places who are blinded by principles and precedents – the right to bear arms, the right to protect ourselves from crime and tyranny – and thus cannot see that we are in a world where the results of political decision-making are conditional. That sweeping statements and bold, un-caveated bills no longer work because there's no such thing as self-moderation anymore in this world embattled by extremes. And while we trust ourselves not to walk into an elementary school with powerful, military-grade, high magazine guns that were purchased legally for recreational shooting and self-defense, can we really trust each other? If recent history – and by that I mean 2012 alone – is any indication, then the answer is a resounding "no."

Which is why we must meet half-way. There has to be a compromise where people can practice their 2nd amendment rights, but be limited to arms of a lesser degree. Arms that will work to stop an intruder, protect against an attacker and – as much as it pains me to say – kill your Thanksgiving turkey fresh from the prairie all by yourself. But not ones that are capable of taking dozens of lives in a matter of minutes. Not ones that are so quick and so powerful that they are used by our military to kill insurgents and would render anyone faced with their barrels incapacitated long before they could draw their own gun in self-defense. 

I hope those who lean more "pro-gun" can see that eliminating everyone's access to these high magazine assault weapons will only help even the balance of power in the citizen vs. criminal scenario they so vehemently fear. Because I believe the majority of people out there, as much as it pains their moral consciences, agree that in many cases there's no time to wait for a policeman or to wield a more conventional weapon to protect against an attacker. The inability for those brave, selfless teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook Elementary to stop the gunman with their bare hands is all of the proof we should need.

A Time to Burn Some Bridges

Throughout my time as a student of political science, I learned the value of not taking political sides on issues unless you really believe in them. It makes it easier to engage in debate when you aren't necessarily sold on a perspective. It compels you to dig into things like political principle, moral guidance and religious history when you haven't yet found your place on either side of a line. 

And then one day it dawns on you that you have in fact chosen a side. That as hard as you've entertained all the angles of an issue with your mind, your heart has chosen an opinion for you. Sometimes this realization comes on slowly – with every debate on the issue, you find yourself more readily able to concoct a rebuttal to points made in defense of what soon becomes the opposing perspective. Or sometimes it happens with a bang – a breaking news alert that something has gone terribly awry and a certain perspective on the issue can be blamed.

I for one am a child of the former when it comes to gun control. With every gun incident in the news, be it victimless or classifiably mass murder, every interview on Fox News, every congressional hearing and every bar stool debate, I've become more and more obsessed with the issue.With every passing day, it consumes me because with so many detrimental things on this planet that we as Americans cannot directly control – civil wars that aren't ours to fight, the manifestation of unbeatable diseases in our loved ones – I feel we should know better than to sit idle in the face of ones we can.

Then there are the victims of the latter – the ones who cannot wrap their heads around something that seems so obvious to others simply because there's nothing real to hold onto beyond our Constitutional right to bear arms. They have been distracted by other wars while the smaller domestic one on gun violence more quietly blips on the radar around our country. They have been overwhelmed by partisan thought-leaders, often influenced by pro-gun lobbies, to the point where they cannot prioritize the tragedy of untimely bullet-induced deaths over the threat of re-adapting our founding fathers' words to better suit our times. 

I choose the word victims for these people because they are not to blame for their fate. We all have our own minds that work in their own mysterious ways. And as someone who rarely feels compelled to take a side on an issue, I completely understand how easy it is to feel paralyzed and overstimulated by our political landscape. 

But in the wake of the heinous tragedy that took 27 lives in Connecticut last week, one that was brought on by a citizen's ability to obtain a high magazine assault rifle, that citizen's subsequent choice to expose their mentally disabled child to that rifle and that mentally disabled child's resulting access to and ability to effectively use that rifle, we no longer have a choice. There is no longer an option. We - You - can't sit this one out. 

We are citizens of a nation that values life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and there is no way to reconcile those values with the rapid, vicious slaughter of 20 pre-schoolers and their defenseless teachers. Even down to the granular, Constitutional law level of this debate, there is simply no argument supporting that this is what our founding father's would have wanted. Not just because of the nature of the murders and the many other senseless ones we've witnessed as of late, but because they never would have defended our nation had they thought we would decimate ourselves so heinously from within 200 years later. It wouldn't have been worth the fight. 

If there is a silver lining to this darkest of hours in America, it is this: We have now seen everyone from congressional leaders to defenseless pre-schoolers find themselves in the cross-hairs of preventable evil. And if people really are the ones who kill these people, then there has never been a more obvious moment to burn the bridges between those people and their guns.

New York City, Get Well Soon.

When thinking back on the past few years of your life, you likely jump from snapshot to snapshot of notable moments. Some might be magnanimous ones like a graduation, a new job, a new person or a new thing. But some might be lingering moments when you heard something, saw something, felt something. When you knew something was happening in your heart or mind, but nothing that you could attribute to a particular event. 

For me, a major one of these less tangible moments was while traveling through Dublin. We had gone to the Guinness Brewery for a tour and came across a wall with these words painted on it:

Home is not where you're from. It's where you're understood. 

At the time I remember thinking how London, the place I had been studying abroad and falling in love with, was that place. The place where I felt like my existence made the most sense, my humor was best appreciated, my life rhythm and day-to-day interests best accommodated. 

But this morning, as I walked to work from my parents' apartment where I've sought refuge from the darkness of downtown Manhattan, I was overcome with home-ness in this city. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I am born again. 

At first, my awakening was brought on by the perfect autumn weather: The sun reflecting off the undulating metal panels of the Chrysler Building, beaming down onto the masses heading to work. The beautiful ballet of a work-day morning. The subtle orchestra of homeless men laughing, car horns honking and dress shoes knocking on the sidewalk pavement. 

And then it was the unspoken air of empathy that I felt swirling between me and my passers-by as we swept from block-to-block on Lexington Avenue. The smirk of reluctant resignation to reality that I saw on my fellow New Yorker's faces as we all did our best with what we had to get where we needed to be this morning. To get to where we belonged at this hour.

Then I approached the hub of the temporary shuttle bus from Brooklyn's Barclay's Center to Midtown Manhattan, 57th and Lexington. Lines upon lines of people wanting to work, waiting for work, looking for any possible way to even just GET to work (let alone do work) stood patiently. And I felt proud that nobody could ever claim that the people of my city are waiting for hand-outs, looking for any way to get by without working. Because this week, we'll do anything to get to work, to be able to get out of bed and have a place to go and feel fulfilled. We'll do anything to keep moving. To keep earning. To keep this city going. 

Because this is our city. It's not just a series of avenues, streets, parks, bridges and tunnels. We aren't 5 boroughs divided by class, rivers and transit lines. Because every morning, as soon as we step out onto our stoops and find our ways to the nearest subway or bus stop, we become part of a New York morning. And we weave in and out of bodegas, up escalators and through train stations. We slide through rotating doors, we peer out windows down onto the streets festering with business, and we vent to each other about the smallest of city woes. We hold doors for each other, we troll in and out of bars and absorb the varying rhythms from within as we jaunt past restaurants and storefronts. 

It's not a deliberate effort. There is no choreography to this movement as we go about our days. We're merely living in this city, fulfilling our role as residents of this great metropolis. And when we see water breach the avenue that houses our favorite brunch or cocktail spot that our parents wouldn't be caught dead in. When we see our friends' cars floating in the parking garages below the buildings we hate to meet them at. When we walk outside to find that those trees that so subtly framed our streets, but weren't enough green for our out-of-town friends, have been everything but eviscerated. When our streets go dark and all the charm that we've loved to hate and loved even more to defend is gone… it's jarring. 

And only then are we reminded that this city isn't just a bunch of isolated strangers. We may be dancing to the beat of our own drums, but when the rhythms harmonize they create the most beautiful dance in the world. And this is where I need to be. This is where I'm understood. A place that I can be my own person, do my own thing and have my own way. But when I go to sleep and when I wake I am never really alone. Because there are 8.2 million people out there who are there for the exact same reasons.

This is a promise to those who don't have a place to go above 39th street in Manhattan, who want to get to work and make money to feed their families but can't. Those who are squatting in bank lobbies and local gyms just to get a charge on their phone and warm shower. Those who did have a place to go have not forgotten about you. Those who don't need the subway to get to work, who already lived in midtown or simply never go downtown anyway. We're suffering too. Because when you aren't moving, we too are stuck. When you aren't working, we too feel idle. And when your lights are out dozens of feet above the city street, we too are crawling in the dark.

Because this is our city. And without each other, we're all just a little bit off.

I love you, New York City. Get well soon.

Humble Pie, Served Presidentially.

Earlier today, I read a New York Times article about Saturday Night Live's (SNL) reaction to last week's presidential debate. The article discussed how the show's writers struggled to pin the best way to make fun of the debate because there wasn't anything particularly peculiar about it other than the moderator's inability to moderate. And while people were joking with the SNL writing/directing staff that "the SNL parody of the debate is basically writing itself," there was a struggle to see what was really worth attempting to get a laugh out of. 

If you're in the business of parody, this bad news could only be buffered by the imminent Vice Presidential debate, an inevitable gaffe-fest. However, in the business of citizenship and politics, having a debate where there wasn't anything notably laughable except a threat to fire Big Bird is refreshing. 

For once, we got wall-to-wall policy and promises with no accidental Bush-isms or off-the-cuff remarks to distract us from why we have debates in the first place: to simplify the candidate comparison process, pinning the two potential presidents head-to-head with minimal network interpretation between them and America. And on top of that, with less color to the debate, we were less tantalized by witty quips and ego stabs. Instead, we were forced to face the reality of the candidates as speakers. As men. 

I say this because a read-through of the debate transcript, which is how I initially consumed the event, shows that the content of President Obama and Governor Romney's exchange almost could've been written ahead of time based on what we knew about the candidates going in. There was a remarkably low occurrence of shocking, SNL-worthy discourse aside from Governor Romney's threat to fire Big Bird. Other than that, the only surprising element was President Obama's lackluster display of charisma, which seemed to take up more of the real-time Twitter and post-event network analysis than anything the candidates said. This begs the question if President Obama's apparent loss should be viewed through a Kennedy-Nixon lens, where the latter's losing factor wasn't what he said so much as it was how he said it and how he looked.

But even if that is the case, I don't hate it! Because as dirty as this race has seemed and as disappointed as people may be with the candidates, the presidential debate last week was surprisingly tame and predictable. And as someone who has been extremely cynical and nervous about the future of our presidency, election process included, I am relieved by what I read and saw. Without all of the typical fatty catch-phrases and name-calling to chew through, the real men behind the campaign tours and attack ads were splayed nakedly across our screens with only their principles to clothe them. It showed that this race and our candidates' motivations are at least in part about doing something for us, the people, and our country.

It's easy to forget that these men are willingly volunteering to lead an entire nation in a scary, tense and often vitriolic domestic and international climate. But a presidential debate like last week's can be just as humbling for us as voters as it is for the candidates themselves. 

Our Gun Problem

Guns are a problem. A serious, American problem. 

Since I was a little girl, guns have terrified me. The sound of a gunshot. An image of a gun. Even the threat of a gun on TV or in the movies makes my heart rate sky-rocket. I think it would be fair to say that the extent of this fear is uncommon; Most people would prefer not to have a run-in with a pistol, but to be so terrified by even the thought of one? I know it's strange. But as uncommon as this terror is, I in no way feel it is irrational. And one of the top five things I wish for my country is for it to be as scared of them as I am. 

This isn't my first post about guns. When Representative Gabrielle Giffords was nearly assassinated outside a Tucson grocery store, and some of her colleagues and constituents brutally murdered, I crafted a pretty impassioned testimony on my opinion of gun control. But in the past year, there have been even more incidents that indicate that our complacency when it comes to these violent weapons has gone way too far. Because we continue to see mentally unstable, racist and extremist individuals abuse their right to own a gun. And our government made the ill-advised decision to leverage the desirability of guns in the Mexican drug race to try and defeat it in the now famed Operation Fast and Furious. How meta of us.

Now before you put me in a certain ideological bucket without even reading where I'm going with this, know that I have asked myself these things:

• Is it fair to punish the vast majority of sane, self-defense-seeking or for-pleasure gun owners for the misbehavior of ignorant, malicious lunatics and otherwise normal people-turned-murderers?
• Would it even be possible to amend or caveat the Right to Bear Arms without opening a can of worms for the rest of our coveted Constitution?
• Are we sure that Operation Fast and Furious hasn't worked, at least in part, to help us track down drug lords and mass murderers despite the collateral damage?

And for each of these, I have thoughts. 

Now, I'm no self-defense-seeking or for-pleasure gun owner, but I do know that I don't mind the things I care about/enjoy being regulated so people don't take advantage of and ruin them for the rest of us. I also feel that the things I am most passionate about (travel, art, education) are not compromised by the barriers to entry put in place to ensure quality, security and honesty. I'm glad you have to be a certain age to see Rated R movies because that enables movies with more controversial (read: not child-proof) content to be made and shown. I'm thrilled my alma mater had a rigorous application process because that ensured, to a certain degree, that the people I was surrounded by on a daily basis wanted that education as much as I did. And you know what, TSA can make me take my socks off, throw out my brand new water bottle and scan me with X-ray vision as much as they want because that means I can fly around the world with the knowledge that due diligence was done to protect me. Movies, state-of-the-art education, travel. These are things people love and don't stop indulging in just because of a few hoops to jump through. So, self-defense-seeking and/or for-pleasure gun owners, why do you care if you have to sign a few extra forms, wait a few extra weeks and even submit some more invasive personal information to get your next gat? Making sure potential gun owners are assessed and proven able to handle the responsibility of gun ownership protects you and your craft just as much as it protects the rest of us.

Amending or caveating the Right to Bear Arms without opening a can of worms for the rest of our coveted Constitution: always a dicey issue. But my opinion on this goes far beyond the fact that our forefathers have probably already been rolling over in their graves at the sound of guns stronger and more concealable than muskets. I think we need to learn from history and recognize that being precious with the Constitution hasn't always been in our best interest. It's not like the document has never been amended and re-amended for things like basic human rights and alcohol consumption. Of course it shouldn't be taken lightly, but ruled out completely when a right is being abused to the extent that has been? We're inadvertently committing suicide. 

And Operation Fast and Furious I can't even talk about because it makes me so angry. I don't want to live in a nation that can't find a better way to assist their drug war-rattled neighbor than build a fence and hand them some registered guns. "We'll track them down eventually." After how many headless bodies are found hanging from the bridges of Nuevo Laredo? After how much blood is splattered on our nation's hands?

If you agree, disagree or are at least entertaining me, my work here is done. Because in just a few years we've seen Tucson, Fort Hood, Virginia Tech, the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, the unraveling of Operation Fast and Furious and the Dark Knight shooting in Colorado, and as voting American citizens, we owe it to each other to engage in dialogue about this. 

In conclusion, if it were really up to me, I would leave the guns to my government, law enforcement and military because I believe certain regulations aren't suffocation or protection from ourselves. They're protection from each other – from those who don't love thy neighbor and have some bullets to prove it. But it's not up to just me and I know I might have a little too much faith (or too much fear) for my own good. So instead, I hope that we're all taking a step back this year and acknowledging that, if anything, guns are a serious problem. And no good is coming from pretending like there's no way to fix it. 

The Fat Tax

Recently media outlets have been reporting the possibility of a "fat tax" that would add a small percentage onto the cost of unhealthy foods, like sodas and cheeseburgers. Twenty years from now, when my children are asking what a classic 21st century America problem was, this will probably be it. But all snark aside, there are several different issues and ideas that come into play when thinking about this possibility.

First is the question of whether people should be taxed for lifestyle choices. In one sense, our nation's government sees it as their responsibility to protect their people, even if that protection is from themselves. Think the legality of assisted suicide, age requirements for drinking, driving and enlisting in the army and of course government organizations like the FDA. But then again, who is my representative, senator or governor to tell me that I can't do something that may or may not hurt or kill me? After all, it's legal to sky-dive, enroll in controlled drug trials and lay on the beach without sunscreen. How are the risks of engaging in these activities any different than consuming a fatty food?

But then you have to consider that the government already controls certain risky activities that could potentially impact people aside from ourselves. You can't drink and drive, not just because you could injure yourself, but because you risk hurting others as well. Smoking is becoming more and more regulated (and taxed), not necessarily because it can slowly deteriorate your own health, but because second-hand smoke can hurt others too. And then everyone's favorite argument, abortion. There are some risks for the mother, but the real issue is what's happening to the child/non-child (depending on who you ask).

So where does the obesity "epidemic" in the United States fall into this? Is it a lifestyle choice that the government should have any control over, even if it is just in the form of an 80 cent tax on a four dollar cheeseburger? Can it be considered something that impacts others, given that your lifestyle choices might influence those of your progeny? Or would even that small infringement on man's right to gorge set a precedent that the government can prevent us from doing anything they conceive to be risky?

The brat/healthy-eater/frequent exerciser within wants to invoke some Darwin philosophy and let the fat people be fat and face the consequences. And that's probably what the average social conservative would say about this issue as well. But the impact that taxation on tobacco has had on its consumption, something that does slowly, but surely compromise your health, makes it hard to argue that a "fat tax" isn't a good idea. If not because of the lives it may or may not save, then because of the money that it has brought in from those people who will smoke no matter how much it costs. And in a nation that is simultaneously hungry for money and food and sick of handing their income off to Uncle Sam, why not choose a blanket solution?

But the argument I can see against it is how this kind of ruling could impact future laws. For instance, if there becomes a "roller-coaster tax" because riding roller-coasters leads to heart attacks or an "SPF tax" because using sunscreen with less than 45 SPF puts you at serious risk for Skin Cancer, then we'll have a serious problem. And in a country that is so clearly grasping onto any legal/constitutional precedents possible to navigate through modern-day issues, this kind of evolution of government influence is something that could easily become real.

So, what think you, french fry lovers and quinoa consumers alike? Let them eat cake or let them eat cake at a price?

The Makings of Magic

One of the things I love most about sports is that, as an institution, it provides a unique lens through which we can view history, society and life. We can look at time as those intervals between Olympics, March's or Post-Seasons. We can know regions, nations and groups of people by their colors, sports and arenas of choice. And most importantly, we can understand conflicts as unfamiliar undercurrents in the context of beloved global past times. The hostages in Munich. The Troubles erupting at UK football matches. Ernie Davis. Billie Jean King. All of these are examples of sporting events, practices or figures that epitomize a wave in human history. And one more to add to the list, especially after last night's documentary "The Announcement" on ESPN, is Magic Johnson.

When Magic realized his condition and announced it to the world in 1991, I was far too young to know what was going on. And even as I grew up in a world that was slowly desensitizing to the existence of HIV and AIDS, I didn't hear his name as often as I should have. After all, my understanding of what this unhealthy pairing was and did mostly came from the movie RENT. But having watched "The Announcement," I regret that I didn't have a full understanding of Magic Johnson's role in that period of history – where AIDS swept through like a plague and changed the course of every institution (sexual conduct, sports, politics, pop culture) it touched – until now.

But better late than never and I cannot thank ESPN enough for working with Magic Johnson to remind generations past of his hardship and to shed light on a vital period of history in a culturally relevant way for my generation. And beyond teaching us about the history of HIV/AIDS, the documentary shows that, with the right amount of courage and support, one powerful man can do a whole lot for a lot of people when empowered from within. As Magic Johnson's wife initially asked him to do, the athlete could have kept his situation private. Or as many others do, he could have completely disappeared from public life in shame and accepted the inevitable alienation. But Magic saw his curse as a gift – an opportunity to help the world around him. A world made of people who had the virus, people who were at risk to get the virus and people who needed to learn to be okay with the virus. We didn't know it at the time, but we needed a man like Magic Johnson to take his circumstances and force us to understand. Not through evangelical PR campaigns and defensive interviews. But with compassion, honesty, faith and humility.

All of this comes back to a theme I frequently touch on in my blog: that athletes, and all others who welcome fame and publicity into their lives, must also be accepting of the fact that they have a responsibility. That they are subject to public opinion and, in turn, are indebted to an unwritten moral code, a double standard. That they are obligated to see their actions as more than just personal choices, but instead significant ripples in the waters of the human condition. And the keyword there is human. One of the most inspiring aspects of Magic Johnson's story is that he struck a fantastic balance between using fame to further the cause and using the prevalence of his illness to show its relevance and nature. And when a person can step up while also stepping away from himself, to use his pre-established power and greatness for good, well there is simply nothing more magical than that.

Taylor & Tebow: A Morality Story

During my university career, I worked as a liaison between the Office of Judicial Affairs and the students. It was a tough role to play, as I was always a bit of an Honor Code junky in an academic setting. Yet, I tend to give credit to all perspectives on situations, so I was often left conflicted on how I felt about my peers' actions. Of all the experiences I had in hearings, though, the most difficult to come to terms with logically were those involving student-athletes, many of whom were at the university on scholarship.

At the judicial kick-off conference at the beginning of each academic year, we always talked about whether "aggravating circumstances" should come into play when determining verdicts and sanctions for students. The most ubiquitous of aggravating circumstances was a scholarship, specifically for a student-athlete. The question was if scholarship athletes should get unique treatment in the judicial system given their importance to the university and the means by which they could attend the university.

I had my opinion: scholarship students or student-athletes are given a rare opportunity to attend an esteemed university with support from that university. Sure, they had more strenuous academic, physical and time obligations than the average, full tuition-paying student. But that came with the territory. Attending my university was a privilege, not a right. An opportunity to better and prove oneself, not a free pass to do what you have to do to get by. Plus, scholarship students are oftentimes the ones honored on the university website and the student-athletes are the ones that the little sports fans aspire to be like. So why shouldn't these people who have been blessed with opportunity and entrusted with the title, "scholarship student" be held to a higher standard? Why shouldn't the power given to these students by the university, the power to get a top-25 American education and/or play on a Division I athletic team, also face the comparable responsibility of upholding the values of that university?

My opinion was clear: Of course scholarship students, especially student-athletes, should be held to a higher standard. But this opinion, or any other for that matter, was never written in stone, no matter how long we spent talking about it. And today, when you read the papers, the general public's decision to dance around the subject of being held to a higher standard is more apparent than ever. Cue Taylor and Tebow.

A few weeks ago I read an interview with Taylor Swift where she explained why she was not one to consume alcohol or go out partying. She spoke candidly about the fact that her career choice has put her in a position to be a role model, whether she likes it or not. This is something that she accepts because there's no way around it and anyone who finds themselves on red carpets, stages or newspaper pages should recognize that with that great power (and privilege) of being in the spotlight comes a hefty responsibility.

These are also similar words to those we've heard from Tebow in his many interviews, including the most recent one in USA Today. He knows that his career depends on the way he behaves when he's not on the football field, not just because he needs to take care of himself, but because people, like his friends and family, look up to him. With the opportunity to be on that field and pursue his passion day in and day out comes the responsibility of being the man that every fan and enemy alike looks to. And he knows that with the fame and the fortune comes opportunities to go out, spend money and be a little reckless. But just because the option to do these things is there doesn't mean you have to or even should do them.

Taylor Swift and Tim Tebow probably don't have much in common. But there is one thing that they both do that gives me a (likely false) hope that the future of celebrity might be bright. They are both young people in the primes of their lives, with every opportunity at their finger tips. But some of those opportunities could damage more than their careers: some could impact them for life. In a bad way. And the ability to take a step back and ask if a decision is both true to themselves and true to the privileges they've been given, to the way their fans need to see them, is a sign of maturity and worthiness of celebrity.

So when I think back at that question, should scholarship students and student-athletes, who are arguably the "celebrities" of the university setting, be held to a higher standard? I still think yes. Because if they are mature and morally worthy enough to be given the privilege of a scholarship, to pursue their passion, be it academic or athletic, then they should have the self-control to make good decisions. And thus when they make mistakes, the big ones that are worthy of meeting a judicial dean, then they should be mature and moral enough to recognize that they deserve greater punishment. Because it's not like these young men and women go into a scholarship blind; they know very well that it's something they've earned and that it holds a meaning greater than numbers on a check. They know that it's an honor and that even the smallest misstep could bring it all crashing down. And after all, who we are is a product of the choices we make. Isn't it the responsibility of higher education to make sure we know that?