The Crier

Get Off of My Cloud

Could selective wireless access breed the segregation of the future?

Forest Casey · Tech · Feb 05, 2007

Discrimination is an ugly thing. If I had to put a face on it, I would say that it would be bulbous and round, a fat judge wearing a powdered wig. And there is a new type of discrimination developing right here on campus. For proof, look no further than the Law Library.

A notice is taped on the end of each of the library’s tables, a proclamation that all men are created equal, as long as they are admitted to the Law School. Only that select group can access the wireless network. Only they can do research in the library, as there aren’t adequate computer labs in the building. Only they can ride the internet superhighway; the rest of the campus has but a toll road.

This lack of access in the Law Quad is an extension of the velvet rope that divides the library during finals time, when only law students can use the wide tables for study. Stressed over exams and cramming for the Bar, law students don’t want to put up with undergraduates checking Facebook and bitching about Orgo over AIM. Blocking their access to the web is a gentle way of dissuading them from coming at all.

All men are created equal, as long as they are admitted to the Law School.

We’re reminded of our fair university’s previous record of discrimination every time we pass the yellow-folder-carrying high schoolers that tour the University. As their happy group passes the Michigan League on the way to East Quad for some goulash and pirogues, you can hear their guide lecture them about the founding of the Michigan League.

In case you were sleepwalking through the tour, the Michigan League was founded in 19-whatever as a counterpart to the Michigan Union — the former was for young ladies and the latter for young gentlemen. At first, this seems all fine and proper. After all, we do have separate restrooms for men and women and, besides, the Union is much more phallic. But here’s the kicker: at the time of its construction, women weren’t allowed in the Union. Period.

And that just sucks. Were it still true, campus women would never get to taste the magic of Magic Wok. They wouldn’t get to be overcharged at Amer’s, or toil through the line at Wendy’s. Discrimination is ugly, indeed.

Campus women could never taste the magic of Magic Wok. They wouldn’t get to be overcharged at Amer’s, or toil through the line at Wendy’s. Discrimination is ugly, indeed.

But, thanks to equal rights legislation and a forward-thinking administration, women no longer have to see the face of discrimination — whatever it may look like. The Union, regardless of its gauche underbelly, is still one of the most architecturally striking buildings in the state. Denying a University student access to one of campus’s most prized buildings is like sending out golden tickets to a chocolate factory and not letting the ticket-holders eat the chocolate.

And that’s precisely how I feel each time I open my laptop at the Law Library, like I was Mike Teevee, called a child and sent home early.

But still, it’s easy to step back and see the law students’ point. We all hate loud cell phone rings when we’re trying to study. And the internet makes it much easier to be distracted, especially when the girl sitting next to you is on YouTube. Graduate students are, on the whole, more couth than the rest of us.

But I can see wireless internet privileges forming a new type of discrimination. I can see a day where your access to the internet determines where you study, where you eat and drink, what area of town you live in and, maybe, which Wendy’s you eat at: the one in the League or the one in the Union.