Editorial: Either Way You’re Going To See a Reaction

This year, Elmhurst University is not planning on hosting a campus election night event. There have been voter registration booths across campus, the announcement of the closure of campus on Election Day, and plenty of buzz about the upcoming general election, but EU doesn’t feel it’s necessary to support the on-campus political engagement of their students on our nation’s most important night of the year.

The 2024 general election is shaping up to be an intense one. The Presidency, highlighting this year’s election, is a contentious battle. Both candidates have continued to be nearly equal in national polls as tensions continue to rise.

Regardless of the result of the election, there will be a visible reaction from campus. At a place like EU, it likely won’t be protests, riots, or even extended outcry, but it will be felt. Side comments from students or professors, social media posts, conversations within friend groups. There’s going to be a reaction, so why is campus trying to hide it?

Explicit political groups exist on campus. The EU Republicans Club has been forming very recently, and the Political Discussion Club is always looking to recruit more members as they host their own Election Watch Party on the evening of Nov. 5.

Clubs like these should exist and host important and relevant events on campus, but the impetus shouldn’t be completely on them, especially on a night as important as election night.

Over the summer, The Leader had the opportunity to chat with President Troy VanAken about the upcoming election and its influence on campus. He believed it would be an important event, but he personally didn’t want to show a political skew.

Instead of hosting a campus-wide event where students are encouraged to express their own political beliefs and opinions, giving the impression that students are free to choose their beliefs and that they should be able to express them, a decision was made instead to hide politics from campus.

Not hosting an election event, as EU has done in previous election cycles, won’t necessarily decrease political polarization among students, but it will encourage them to think politics altogether are bad and political beliefs should be hidden.

EU has instead opted to host Stress Management events the day after the election, prioritizing student health and wellness. And while this isn’t a bad thing by any means, and these activities are important–it feels like they’re attempting to side-step the issue and avoid the giant red-white-and-blue elephant in the room.

That’s the main issue. EU wants to make their students believe they are accepting of all political walks on campus; but, instead of encouraging thoughtful political discussion, they are hiding and obscuring political engagement on campus in a poor effort to mitigate any sort of on-campus controversy surrounding the election.

The election will happen on Nov. 5, students and clubs will have reactions, and the new policies and laws put in place by our new President, senators, and representatives, state-level and national, will have an effect on campus life. It is frankly a disservice to the student body not to host coverage on a night like Nov. 5.