Like many students on campus, I feel that the refusal of the board to rename the buildings on campus named after slave owners is not only wrong but shows where their true priorities lie. As a university we are lucky to be in a position where money is no object, or at least does not have to be a main factor in most of our decisions. Despite this, it seems that most controversial acts are done in the name of sparing our institution the loss of donor and alumni support.

Furthermore, another argument made in support of this inaction is that of preserving history in its truest sense. I believe here many parallels can be drawn to the removal of confederate statues over this past year. There is a vast difference between acknowledging our troubled history and proudly displaying it as if it is not troubled. My favorite example to use in this argument is that of Germany’s difficult past. In that country, it is illegal to deny that the Holocaust took place and there are many museums and historical sites that detail the tragic things that happened there. There are not, however, any large statues of Hitler on city streets in affluent neighborhoods. I think the best solution would be to have a small plaque or display in each building for the history of Freeman and Ryland so the history can be taught, while changing the names of the buildings so the problematic history is not being displayed proudly.

While the main name debate here at UR has been focused on Freeman and Ryland, another name that I also have an issue with is Paul Queally, whose name is on three buildings. Paul Queally, class of 1986, is the rector of the Board of Trustees (only 3 of 25 members are people of color, one of whom is President Crutcher) which gives him the most power on the campus. Paul Queally has a number of offenses that do not justify the University having three buildings with his name attached. He was caught telling sexist and homophobic jokes in front of an audience of other powerful and wealthy people that participate in multiple off-color and inappropriate jokes. In response to his words, he said “My brief remarks were in the spirit of the event but they do not reflect my views or my values. On reflection I should have said nothing. … I believe my record in support of education, diversity, and economic advancement defines who I am and what I stand for.” If he truly supported diversity then he would make a bigger effort to increase diversity on the Board of Trustees and wouldn’t say things that offend and make others uncomfortable.

A bit lesser known, Paul Queally is also responsible for the creation of the men’s lacrosse team. It’s great to have a lacrosse team, but at what cost? Paul Queally paid $3 million to eliminate the men’s track and soccer teams to make room for the lacrosse team. How was this decision made? The details aren’t clear. Queally did, however, have an incoming son who played high school lacrosse. Ultimately this lead to a fallout among the Board of Trustees with Bobby Ukrop (class of 1969 and CEO of Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods), who was a big soccer fan himself. He wasn’t the only one to leave either, as donations to school dropped 10% after the decision to remove the soccer and track teams was made.

Until this school changes its leadership and values morals over money, I do not see much progress in making this campus more inclusive and supportive for people of all backgrounds. Everyone makes mistakes, but surely we can get someone who makes fewer mistakes than Paul Queally. Our school already has a few billion in the endowment, so we should stop taking his millions.

My initial reaction to Flanigan’s article against prescription requirements is a great example of the assumptions Bezio discussed in podcast 3. I honestly thought that the article was a satire at first. Prescription drugs, in our lifetime, have always been an accepted and understood norm in society. Exactly like Bezio said, for me since prescription drugs have always been my reality then they must require prescriptions for a good reason. My immediate reaction to the text was to see it as so far from being feasible that it was essentially a joke. Now, I hope this doesn’t come off as disrespectful in any way to Flanigan’s work because after reading the essay I clearly see it was well structured, argued, and researched. But I thought it only fitting to share that upon reading the title and just the abstract, my gut instinct was to assume Bezio somehow was going to say “gotcha! that article was fictitious, but you believed it anyway!” 

Upon further analysis, it was clear to see how ethical reasoning played an explicit role in Flanigan’s argument. The first two reasons she uses to support her acceptance of the DIC she categorizes as consequentialist issues. Medical outcomes and epistemic authority both reflect that upon evaluation, the consequences are what should be evaluated to decide whether the action is morally good or bad. For medical outcomes, both doctors and patients should want the best outcome, or the best consequence and therefore decide on the action that provides the best consequence. For epistemic authority, Flanigan argues that because patients know their own overall interest better, they should be able to judge their treatment decisions. The patients get to decide which action would provide the best consequences for themselves, not their doctor. Finally, the third reason in support of the DIC is presented through a deontic lens. The third reason is normative authority which means the patients have authority to decide their treatment plan even if overall it does not have the best consequences for their health. In deontism, we must only evaluate the action itself being taken not the consequences. Medical professionals should only judge a patient’s action, not whether or not the consequence of said action is what they view as bad or good. Furthermore, I also think it is implied here that virtue ethics could be applied in getting rid of prescription requirements. If we eliminate the need to have a prescription, it falls on the virtue of the individual to keep themselves safe and healthy. It is also their responsibility to seek guidance if they need it. I think if we take away the responsibility from doctors to prescribe drugs, then the system will begin to rely on individual ethics. We are learning how much ethics vary from person to person and to me that seems like an unstable foundation to set a system of drugs on.

In podcast 3, Dr. Bezio talked about needing to be aware of where our judgements and biases come from. I think this podcast was a great way to follow up the reading for the last class regarding split second judgements and implicit biases. First, it is important to know where our decisions come from. Along these lines, awareness that differences aren’t always a bad thing is key. However, doesn’t part of this come from our own human nature to have an in group – our group bias judgement? I am not saying I agree with it, but rather I think becoming aware of it is important.

For example, Dr. Bezio discussed at length in this podcast about how the social standards set in The United States have generally come from the same population of people: a majority rule of white middle to upper class citizens. Because of this, laws regulations, and social norms were then facilitated in order to keep this group of people happy and satisfied because there was the most of them. However, as the podcast mentioned, this was really only roughly 30-35% of the population, which means that the other 65-70% of people were conforming to norms different than their own. It initially seems strange to think about, but I believe this goes back to the in group/ out group bias tendency. This group of people have generally been in rule of this society for a while, therefore the norms of the society benefit and are biased towards that group. Moving forward, I think we have to progress past the idea that if something is different or not normal then it is weird or even wrong. If we never move past the point of being critical of differences, then we neglect to take advantage of an opportunity to learn from others.

Lastly, I found one point from Flanigan’s writing for today interesting along these same lines. She discusses the fact that we tend to assume that people who are self medicating are doing it for reasons such as leisure, pleasure, or enjoyment, but rarely do we put ourselves in their shoes and evaluate it from a different standpoint. Medicine is a very important, yet touchy topic, and with a mom who is a doctor, I have heard stories about the DIC and her own struggles with assumptions about patients and their uses of medicine. It is obviously difficult to manage our assumptions, but awareness of it is the first key, and the process of moving past them can begin.

I think that the naming of the buildings on our campus is a very difficult decision to make, one that is likely more complex than first meets the eye. I wish that in the first place, we didn’t have slave owners name’s on buildings; however, the reality of the situation is that these people did have a large impact on our school’s founding and development over the years. These contributions are what likely got their names on the buildings in the first place. I wish I could say that our Univeristy, and frankly our country, weren’t founded by a group of white, mostly slave owning men. Yet this again is the truth about the country we live in. Clearly, the honoring of these people with buildings is harmful to a group of students on our campus who already may or may not struggle to feel valued at a PWI. We cannot simply erase these names, as they are unfortunately part of our history and need to be acknowledged so that responsibility can be taken for their wrongdoings. Does this mean they deserve to have buildings named after them? Perhaps not. But there certainly needs to be acknowledgement of the history of our institution in an effort to move forward in a positive way and change the culture of our campus. I understand that changing the names of buildings can be controversial in terms of losing alumni and donor support. But frankly if someone in university administration had looked at the names previously and thought hey, maybe we shouldn’t name dorms after slaveowners, then the name could have been quietly changed and a plaque outside of the building or in the university museum could acknowledge that yes his person is integral to where our university is now, but we don’t agree with their decision to own slaves. I in no way think my proposed solution is perfect and certainly am glad that I do not have to be the one making this decision. But ultimately I think the student’s and faculty opinion’s have to be considered as we are the present state of the Univeristy and the future of donations.

I see the discussion of assumptions falling along the same lines of stereotypes, I’m guessing that’s why they were assigned back to back. A Venn diagram showcasing stereotypes and assumptions would have a very large overlapping area.  From the two assigned readings, I think it’s fair to say that both topics, health and immigration, are often shrouded with assumptions any time that they are brought up. I was guilty of creating immediate assumptions about the Flanigan article after only reading the title. Why and when would prescription requirements be bad? That’s not something that I ever think about, so I immediately assumed that prescriptions are inherently good, after all, they are made to give medicine to help people. It turns out I only needed to read half of the first page before the example scenarios overrode my previous assumptions.

I generally agree with the argument made by Flanigan that prescription drug laws violate patients’ rights to self-medication. That was the explicit argument, but I almost felt as if it turned into saying that all drugs should have open access to all in any amount. That’s basically what would happen if the prescription part of prescription drugs was eliminated. This is of course, an assumption made by me. I think the elimination of prescription drugs and respecting of self-medication is a very idealist stance and will be nearly impossible to achieve given how manufactured our society is. We can get make progess by decriminalizing drugs like Oregon has done, which I think is great. However, without the proper allocation of subsidies, funds, and infrastructure in place to provide things like free drug rehabilitation services, I fear that more issues will come. Luckily Oregon is accounting for these things, offering those with addictions and criminal charges the opportunity to go to rehab instead of jail. On a seperate note, I find it ridiculous and abhorrent that there are so many people that are unable to get the prescription drugs they need, whether it be because of cost of supply, but usually because of cost. The cost barrier of those individual medical needs must be broken down, otherwise removing the prescription part would only make a small dent.

The last point that Professor Bezio made was to think about what we think we know and what we know. Every day we make assumptions about people, places, things, and ideas, but typically these assumptions are not out of facts. The example about sandwich cutting was so legit because I assumed that everyone just cut their sandwich in half, but some cut them in fours. I don’t think cutting my food in half makes me a better person, but if you look at a bigger idea, it could be different.
I assumed before Flanigan’s research that you would be crazy to self-medicate. Why would anyone spend the money and time educating themselves to become doctors people can just go against their recommendations and take whatever they want ? I think she provides a solid argument that self-medicating can help lead to a decrease in black-market drug deals. The government could put a more regulated system in place to buy the medication from a store or get it from your local doctor. On the flip side of this, it is not explicitly mentioned in the reading, but black market + under the table deals are a huge part of the economy even if it can’t be explicitly calculated. If the government allows self-medication, the sector is gone. I am not saying that I specifically believe that black-markets are good, but they create jobs and are people’s livelihoods. Looking at a drug like Adderall, it is prevented from improving productivity. College students especially love that; however, you can’t legally get it if you don’t have ADD. If you were to allow for self-medication, the potentially sketchy black-market transactions would decrease, but you would have tons of kids on stimulants running around.
There are many answers to the question, and I just looked at part of it. Still, when you talk about life assumptions, you have to look at the facts and evaluate to make sure any implicit biases or even explicit biases are coming out when making the assumptions.

I do understand some people’s perspectives and reasons for not wanting to change the building names on campus, as they think that we should remember what happened in our past and try to learn/grow from it rather than just changing the names on the buildings. However, this brings up the point of looking back at history of not only seeing the history/what the importance was of the names on the buildings in the past, but we also have to think about what those names meant and continue to mean/perpetrate to other large groups of people/students on campus by doing research, as well as just listening to stories, reasons, and supporting those who are greatly affected by those names being on our buildings on campus. This also brings in the concept of ethics, and what is ethically and morally right to do. We need to think about everyone that is affected by these building names and why students created the “protect the web” petition in the first place, and how much an issue this truly must be if the students took so much time and effort to bring this movement into motion. I personally think it is morally and ethically right to  stand by the large groups of our students that these names negatively affect and I think the names should be changed on the buildings  across campus.

 While I do see the importance of remembering the past, There are ways to remember the history of the buildings and their names while not continuing to advertise and display names on our buildings that perpetrated (and continue to penetrate and a constant reminder for some) the worst parts of history, such as putting a plaque inside the buildings or on the outside that discuss some of the history, or simply state “formally known as Ryland hall”, in order to preserve the history of the buildings.

Upon reviewing the revisionary view, it is interesting to analyze the immigration restrictions within our country and if they are permissible. Immigration restrictions are hard to measure as they do not draw a line for how to keep a country safe and how to be accepting at the same time. This mentality applies to a lot of things in life. It is hard to respect others while creating rules in order to stay safe or alive. Who is the judge of what is right and wrong when it comes to human lives?

As a white person on-campus, it is very difficult for me to weigh in on this as walking past the names of Ryland and Freeman on buildings around campus I will never understand what African American’s feel. I think as Kendall and Tess touched on, it is important to address the history of this campus and acknowledge where the money that has allowed this school to grow has come from. We cannot move forward if we ignore what has happened in the past so I think like what was done with freeman hall (attaching another name to the front of it that being one of Freeman’s slaves) should also be done to Ryland Hall. I think forcing people to learn about the darker history of this campus sparks a necessary conversation among everyone about how this country and our community can continue to progress past its racially-divided and discriminatory roots and support communities of color.