PLATFORM : For Rioting’s Sake?

DOUG DiFRANCO is the editor of the Mustang Daily at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The Times asked his views of the weekend rioting at the annual Poly Royal festival, which the university has decided to cancel.

They’ve been trying to pinpoint a reason why this started. None can really be found. There’s no underlying social conflict that caused this. Over the recent months we’ve seen rioting in China for democracy and in Eastern Europe for freedom. In San Luis Obispo, they show rioting for rioting’s sake. It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know if anyone’s going to come up with a reason.

As a whole, Poly students are mad that this happened. The past 58 years, the whole emphasis (of the Poly Royal festival) was to showcase the university and what its students could do. It’s kind of ironic, San Luis Obispo getting that award for being the best little town, then Poly students are identified with rioting.

An overwhelming majority of the students I’ve talked to think the police at first tried to act calmly and not resort to force, but it became apparent that the crowd was not going to listen to them.

As far as the university canceling the entire thing, we feel that it was a responsible decision to make. It will certainly quiet the problem. But we do think they may have acted too hastily. We think it was meant to calm the rising tempers in the community. Was there really a need to announce it the next day? Or could they have thought about it over the coming months and come up with alternatives?