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George Will lecture provides Miami with opportunity to change campus culture

The following piece, written by the opinion editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

Many Miami students and faculty members have been showing outrage toward the university for allowing newspaper columnist George Will to speak on campus following his offensive remarks about sexual assault in a Washington Post column.

In his June column, he stated, "The administration's crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported."

This implies that Will believes sexual assault statistics are blown out of proportion and that colleges and organizations are suffering as a result.

Will appeared on Fox News and this weekend and rambled false facts about how the Ebola virus can be spread through the air by coughing and sneezing. These misinformed comments achieve nothing more than stoking the fire of media frenzy around Ebola in the United States.

Will, who is being paid over $40,000 by the university to speak for the Anderson Distinguished Lecture series, has garnered a lot of negative attention for his comments. But we at The Miami Student don't necessarily see his arrival as an all-around negative event.

Although we disagree with Will's remarks, his impending arrival on campus has sparked a huge amount of campus debate among student and faculty members. As a school with a growing sexual assault problem - there were four reported instances in 2011 and 18 in 2013 - this dialogue needs to happen here.

Perhaps Will being on campus will make more students speak up about their issues with how sexual assault is handled at Miami and at other universities like it. He hasn't even spoken yet, but the response has already been huge, both in student media and by word of mouth. A letter protesting Will's lecture circulated yesterday and garnered signatures from students and faculty covering more than a dozen pages at the time this was written. That is evidence, if nothing else, of meaningful discourse.

We do wonder though why Miami has chosen to bring Will to campus in the heat of his controversial remarks about sexual assault on college campuses. For a lecture series that has previously included huge names such as Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, the Editorial Board believes that the university could've brought someone less controversial, but equally, if not more well known.

Additionally, Will's lecture will be held in the Farmer School of Business, whereas all previous lectures from this circuit were held in Millet Hall. This seems like a sign the university doesn't believe Will is prominent enough to fill Millet, so why is it that he is being paid $48,000 to speak?

Miami certainly is capable of finding someone else to come speak in the light of student and faculty outcry against Will and his ignorant public remarks.However, there are no grounds that say Will shouldn't be allowed to speak.

Despite his widely criticized views, Will is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author. He is obviously a leader in his field, and so we understand why Miami would bring him to campus.

We don't agree with Will's comments, but we think the university and its students should use this opportunity to generate discussion about sexual assault issues on our campus.

Will's comments teach us that there is still so much more to be done in regards to how sexual assault is viewed on college campuses and how it should be handled.

He reminds us there is still widespread ignorance to the real issues that plague universities where alcohol is sometimes used as an excuse when sexual assault occurs.

The Editorial Board hopes students use this opportunity to speak up about their concerns regarding sexual assault. Simply disagreeing with Will and calling for the university to cancel his lecture is not solving any problems. We have to come together and make Miami a campus where any form of ignorance regarding sexual assault is in no way tolerated.