Overrated

Lamar Thorpe's Failed Legacy

By: Patrick Ford

Posted: 4/10/07

Lamar Thorpe has been praised this year as a visionary leader who has changed the Student Association for the better. According to a glowing Hatchet op/ed from last November by Kyle Spector, Thorpe deserves much praise mainly because he had not become mired in any scandals and because he has developed a functioning relationship with the SA Senate.

As impressive as it is to see an SA president who is not committing sexual harassment or stealing, Thorpe has not served the interest of all students. Rather he has thrust himself into the spotlight as a political activist on a couple of memorable occasions, taking special interest in causes that had nothing to do with his job as SA president. During the fall semester, he demonstrated this tendency by becoming embroiled in the controversy surrounding the appointment of a Gallaudet University president whom some students at that school thought was not deaf enough. His interest as an activist did not stop at the business of other universities, but also the interests of partisan student groups on campus involved in controversial and divisive issues. Thorpe felt it an essential part of his duty as president to protest with Voices for Choices and FMLA at an impromptu anti-anti-abortion demonstration, proudly declaring “We don’t want a discussion, we’re pro-choice,” according to an account in The Hatchet. What Lamar failed to see was that although he may favor legal abortion, a large number of students that he represents do not. It is my sincere hope that SA President-elect Nicole Capp will serve the interest of all students and will leave behind Thorpe’s self-aggrandizing behavior.

The other poor legacy that Thorpe has bequeathed to this institution is his only real initiative, “free” condoms in freshman dorms. Although it seems clear that Lamar and his supporters had the best of intentions in implementing this program, it is a failure on many fronts and should be disbanded.

Milton Friedman once famously noted that there is “no such thing as a free lunch.” The basic idea behind this aphorism is that if one individual is getting something for free, somebody else ends up paying for it. If there appears to be no direct cost to any individual or group, there is a social cost. So, there is no such thing as a free condom. The idea that students are not paying for the condoms is ludicrous. In this case the SA simply acts as a middleman, shilling out about $100 per month of mandatory student fees in order to pay for condoms used by a small portion of the student body. Thus, students who may abstain from using condoms or do not even live in a freshman dorm are paying to supposedly improve the hygiene of sexually active students.

On a practical level the program is also a failure, mostly because the SA is advocating a general misconception that condoms are almost completely effective in preventing pregnancy. Although condoms obviously lower the risk of pregnancy compared to unprotected sex, it seems shocking that there are no warning labels on condoms informing students of the serious risks involved with condom use. According to Columbia University Health Services, 3 out of 100 women whose sexual partners use condoms in a perfect manner for a year will still get pregnant, and 14 out of 100 women who use condoms in a “typical” manner during the same period will become pregnant. Whether a 3% annual failure rate is good or bad is mostly determined by the cost of the failure. A 97% on an exam is a successful percentage, but a 97% success rate on airplane flights would be a catastrophic failure. Pregnancy for an undergrad, whether you support legal abortion or not, is certainly a very undesirable consequence.

Finally, there is a moral aspect to the issue. Is such a condom program a fair and “neutral” way to protect students’ health, as its proponents claim, or does it promote a culture of promiscuity? If a student group wanted to place a stack of Bibles, Torahs or Korans in the lobby of freshmen dorms to promote “spiritual health,” would that be the neutral position? Of course not. It would be encouraging and facilitating religion.

It seems that those who have already chosen to have sex and use condoms as responsibly as they can be will have already bought them ahead of time. Whereas a couple of drunken freshmen who spontaneously decide to grab a condom on their way upstairs are enabled and encouraged by this program to have sex and are at a greater risk of acting like those 14% of couples who become pregnant in the course of a year.

Also, many GW students morally object to the SA sanctioning open condom use in violation with their religious beliefs. The GW Knights of Columbus, a male Catholic fraternal order of which I am a member, wrote to Thorpe voicing their opposition to the program.

Further, although he has repeatedly denied that his program promotes promiscuous sex, his campaign last year handed out condoms taped to palm cards that read “Don’t Blow It, Just Do It.” Of course, Thorpe declined an interview with The Patriot and declined to comment on individual issues.

Now that Nicole Capp is taking office and Lamar Thorpe is on his way out, it is clear that this program must be dismantled. It is a failure on all fronts, and will only garner us a better grade from Trojan’s sexual health survey (much as distributing “safer” portions beer in Thurston would surely bolster our standing with Budweiser.) Instead, the SA should use student funds for programs that will actually benefit the students, especially in their academic endeavors. With course registration right around the corner, wouldn’t it be nice to have course syllabi accessible online before you register?

This is college after all. To borrow from an old middle-school adage, “Doing what’s popular is not always right, and doing what is right is not always popular.” Thorpe’s program, although popular with certain crowds of students, was not practical or right, for both economic and moral reasons. It must go.

Patrick Ford is a sophomore majoring in political science.