Future Elephant Walks to Exclude Texas A&M University
In an unexpected decision Tuesday, Class Councils have decided to exclude the entirety of Texas A&M University in all future Elephant Walks.
While controversial, the change is a needed addition to make the tradition more inclusive for all students. Class Councils spokesperson and senior biology major Jack Getty spoke to The Mugdown about the alteration.
“The choice was one of forward thinking necessity. Every location or tradition we visit where a student may have had a negative experience is another person left out of the Aggie family. We can either adapt or let shame be a new Core Value.”
Among the excluded areas are the arches in front of the Quad due to a history of oppressing freshman and excluding non-regs. All academic buildings will be excluded because of a legacy of past generations’ failed courses. Military Walk has been removed to avoid connotations with the draft during the Vietnam War. The MSC will not be visited in solidarity with all those harmed by United States service members.
Class Councils expressed that all spaces between the stops need to be excluded, as they celebrate a campus that was originally all male and that excluded minorities. To remember such a mixed legacy would be “backward thinking”.
Sophomore finance major June Tyler expressed her support of the change.
“Honestly why would you want to include the institution in this hallowed tradition? Even the name is on the wrong side of history. Celebrating Texas implies transfer students are second class citizens. Agriculture is an environmentally exploitative practice. Mechanical is poisoned by the history of wage slavery in the industrial system. Universities marginalize community colleges and trade schools.”
The new location for Elephant Walk will be an empty field outside of College Station to remove references to a community primarily controlled by white males. There, students will sit to avoid being ableist to those who cannot walk, and remember their time at Texas A&M in an all inclusive manner.
—Space Cadet
Space Cadet, oh, sweet, innocent, naive Space Cadet. Describing Space Cadet is difficult, but we will attempt to do him justice. Imagine a 120-pound, pale, 5’9, glasses-wearing, engineering Corps fish, that dreams of flying to the moon (though he would never pass that flight physical). Space Cadet spends his free time playing obscure card games and watching the live stream of the International Space Station.