Careless jacks have no place in Willy Week

By Staff Editorial     3/20/08 7:00pm

Will Rice Will Sweep . you off your bike, apparently. In a recent unregistered jack attempt, members of Will Rice College strung fishing wire across random paths across campus (see story, page 1). However, the prank turned into a much more serious affair when two students biked into the wires, injuring themselves.

By any measure, this particular attempt fails miserably to accomplish the Willy Week goal of making jacks creative yet harmless, and we feel it represents a mindset towards the jack tradition that is both irresponsible and poorly thought through. While we know that the intention of the jack was by no means malicious, we also know that careless planning and lack of consideration for consequences can be just as detrimental to the jacks tradition as the intention of doing harm. If we want faculty and administrators to continue to respect our jacks privileges, we have to show that we are capable of moderation and forethought in carrying them out.

Yes, we agree with most Rice students who believe that jacks policing by the university is usually an unnecessary and coddling policy, but until situations like these become extinct, we can see that the policy is there for a reason.

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