Being human beings, we all make mistakes; it is inevitable. Eighty-eight people in particular made mistakes Friday evening that they all must live with for the rest of their lives. They are both upset and embarrassed at the events that took place that night. The only thing that could make their situation worse is having the entire Notre Dame community know about it. Revealing people's personal information such as a name or an address in a front page article of the school newspaper read by thousands of students is both unprofessional and unethical.
I am not against the fact that the incident found its way into The Observer. When something of this size and importance to the local community takes place, it is the responsibility of a journalist to make these events known to the public. However, there exists a great difference between reporting the news and negatively portraying people in the Notre Dame and Saint Mary's community.
There is no excuse for releasing names of those arrested, addresses of the incidents or even the extracurricular activities of a resident who wasn't even involved. The fact that these pieces of information made their way into the school paper is a very negative testament to the staff of The Observer. All those involved in the publishing of the article should be incredibly ashamed of themselves, and realize that as students, they are only hurting the community that we work so hard for at Notre Dame. When people make mistakes, we should let them deal with it personally, not advertise these mistakes to 8,000 more people.
Rick Loesing
junior
Stanford Hall
Sept. 4
