Sky-high admission requirements, tuition hikes, new pressures to graduate on time, limits on community college transfers, the slippery stories of a dethroned football coach — there is plenty to complain about at the University of Washington.
Even without considering off-campus issues — a murky war in Iraq, for instance — students at this flagship institution of higher learning have reason to protest.
What happened early Sunday on fraternity row north of the Seattle campus wasn’t protest.
It was plain stupid.
Described by the Associated Press as an "alcohol-fueled celebration," the mayhem had a crowd of hundreds watching as a mattress was set on fire, rocks and bottles were thrown at police car windows, street signs were ripped down and revelers tried to crack a fire hydrant.
Ouch. The UW hardly needs another black eye. Is it time to peel the UW Alumni sticker off my car?
"It looked like WSU. I’m sure they’re smiling over there," said Walt Crowley, a Seattle historian and former KIRO-TV news commentator who was a player and observer in protests of the 1960s.
The author of "Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle" (University of Washington Press), Crowley compared the recent commotion to a 1998 riot in Pullman near Washington State University.
"This was not a good PR move," said Crowley, who runs History Link (www.historylink.org), a nonprofit organization chronicling the region’s past.
As a writer for the underground Helix newspaper, Crowley had a front-row seat on Vietnam-era protests. He’ll never forget police using tear gas to clear thousands of marchers off I-5 in May 1970 after the Kent State University shootings.
But even then, some young people wreaked havoc for the heck of it.
"Times have changed, but young males haven’t," Crowley said, recalling riots in August 1969 in Seattle’s University District.
"It started with police breaking up a concert on Alki beach, and it spread to the U District," he said. "People tried to make it political, but it really was just kids running berserk for a week."
For one Monroe father, last weekend’s events hit close to home.
Bill Coady said his son Adam, a UW junior, watched the chaos from the roof of Adam Coady’s fraternity house, Delta Chi.
"He told me it all got started at a house party, not a fraternity. But it’s not going to look good for the Greek system," Bill Coady said. "I’m kind of a realist. You get a party at the opening of school, they’re drinking, it gets noisy and police come. Somebody pushes the wrong buttons."
He’s not concerned about his son, a dean’s list student in the UW’s Jackson School of International Relations. "Unfortunately, this is going to bring out people who think all college kids are bad," Coady said.
Robert Kluz of Camano Island has two daughters at the UW. Danielle, a senior, has her eyes on law school. Jamie is a graduate student in international relations.
Both lived in dorms but are now off campus. "They avoid Greek row," said Kluz, who worries about the dangers of partying.
"People get away from home and get a little crazy, I expect some of that," he said. "But there is so much now we really didn’t have in my day, like people slipping things into drinks."
Two young women recently sued the university after accusing UW football players of raping them after fraternity parties.
Although he said, "I hate to stereotype all fraternity members," Crowley said "there should be no surprise in their capacity for brutish, loutish and unruly behavior."
"I think it is their culture," the historian said. "The UW has done a pretty good job keeping a lid on it or this would be a much more common event."
Coady said his son expects a crackdown on all fraternity activities "because of some jerks."
"The actions of the few will spoil it for the many," Coady said.
With his long view of unrest, Crowley chuckled at my notion that students ought to find something more meaningful to protest than the breaking up of a loud party.
How about access to higher education? That would be a start.
"These aren’t the guys who are going to be protesting," Crowley said. "This was more hormonal than social or political."
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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