Letter to the Editor — Lloyd Costley ’60

Dear Trinity,

There is no “systemic racism” or “lethal white supremacy” in 21^st century America.

Consistent with Attorney General Garland’s statement that the most “lethal” threat facing America is white supremacy, we receive emails from the Trinity administration about what the college needed to do to combat this evil in our society (and Trinity campus). We read where the college had hired a DEI officer.

Surprisingly, when I arrived Freshman year, I didn’t have a DEI officer to tell me that I had to like Mike Washington and Ying-Yeung Yam – two of my favorite classmates whom I met the first week in Elton Hall. Some of my great Trin memories included driving with Mike from Trinity to Springfield (our home state was Illinois) laughing all the way (exams were over). And I probably would not have gotten through freshman Analytic Geometry and Calculus without Ying – one of the finest gentlemen I have met and our class Valedictorian. You like people because of natural personal chemistry, and not because we are artificially mixed together to alleviate assigned guilt – or to fill some quarterly quota of DEI, the first cousin of Affirmative Action recently declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

I was born in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, IL) who said that if America is ever defeated it will be from within. Racial division with the constant drumbeat of “white supremacy,” (together with massive illegal immigration) will do just that.

I had hoped our beloved Trinity would have escaped this divisive nonsense. I guess we were a little spoiled with two giants back-to-back, Keith Funston who left to become President of the NYSE, and Dr. Jacobs who brought his close friend President Eisenhower to speak at Trinity (1954). Nevertheless, I sense the pendulum is swinging back to center and Trinity will mellow out on this alienating activism. Also not a fan of the recent “Walk Out” at Trinity supporting Palestinians, the majority of whom support Hamas – but that’s a story for another day. I will continue to proudly fly my Sigill Coll Trin Sanc.

Lloyd Costley

Trinity ’60

P.S.

I saw on TV two Trinity guys who had their two American flags hanging from their window physically taken down by the administration– not because of the (understandable) rule against hanging objects outside on our beautiful Cambridge style Gothic Quad – but because people were “offended.”

Without knowing, they may have offended the Police Defunders because one of the flags supported the police, military and firefighters – the “Thin Line” flag. Or, it was the 2d flag, our 1775 Revolutionary “Gadsden” flag (“Don’t Tread on Me”) which offended those majoring in Literary fiction (the 1619 farce). It should be noted the American flag owners had no problem with other students who hung out gay pride and trans flags – which remained up.