After dealing with my last final, relaxing a bit, and saying goodbye to my friends, it was pleasant to be home again. After all, there is mom’s food and laundry service, no studying, and if I park my car on the wrong side of the street, I can feel comfortable that it won’t be towed. I checked my e-mail only to find an article forwarded to an e-mail list I’m on with the title “RPI Student’s Attacker Still on the Loose,” to read that an RPI student was violently raped in broad daylight on-campus about 500 feet from where I live. My immediate reaction was “How could this possibly have happened?”

I thought and thought, and then I started to get angry. I got angry because I thought back to the two forums that I attended last semester where “officials” came to DCC 308 to discuss what might be on our minds. The first was regarding the Underage Drinking Taskforce. The second was for the local political candidates to come talk to us after RPI students registered to vote and they realized they needed to feign caring about us to get elected. One point was stressed in each of these forums: Troy and Rensselaer County are concerned about our safety.

Isn’t that sweet?

...until you realize that this is all lip service. Let’s look at the county level. Our newly-elected District Attorney, Patricia DeAngelis, emphasizes but one thing in any conversation you might have with her: she cares about protecting women and children. You could start a conversation with this woman about whether McDonald’s or Burger King’s french fries taste better, and her response would end with, “...and that’s why I’ve always maintained that we need to do more to protect our women and children.”  Indeed, if you picked up any of her “Elect me!” literature at the second aforementioned forum, you would see my point. Furthermore, besides to prevent drinking and driving—a problem that’s about as frequent at RPI as a TA speaking comprehensible English—her other big reason for the taskforce was that alcohol leads to rape. The Troy Police seem to concur. The local candidates for city council, likewise, expressed concern about our safety—except for one who mysteriously claimed that Troy is perfectly safe, which was probably less ridiculous than the candidate who claimed we should bottle Troy’s water and sell it as our own “liquid gold.”

Allow me to state the obvious: when people are being raped on the streets in broad daylight, you have to set higher priorities than attempting to ensure the demise of our weak-to-begin-with party scene. It is time to wake up and do what you all promised us you’d do when we elected you. You can now focus on actually keeping us safe rather than on (what you think are) voter-friendly initiatives like the taskforce that actually do nothing to ensure safety. I don’t want to be at a school where people, regardless of gender, are afraid to walk alone on campus. Don’t give me any more lectures on how Troy is a city and cities are dangerous. Don’t give me any more lip service on how you care and you’re doing everything you possibly can. Don’t give me any more excuses about how you don’t have the budget to improve, and arrogantly, insultingly, and incorrectly insinuate that RPI students don’t pay taxes. Take action and do what’s right.

A thank you to RPI Public Safety for being the only group that seems to be genuine in their intentions. Please continue your efforts without being swayed by the foolish initiatives of others.

Jonathan Corbett