Responding to news that Fort Lewis students had defaced ancient Native American ruins in Utah, a college spokesman Mitch Davis said, “Our students know better than that.” Well, yes, one would have hoped.
At this point, though, it is incumbent upon the college to ensure that the students involved – and their peers – do indeed know better than to do such a thing. The incident not only reflects poorly on the actual offenders but on the entire college and, by extension, Durango. That is not acceptable.
The incident happened between Oct. 14 to Oct. 16 on an FLC Outdoor Pursuits overnight trip to the Butler Wash area near Utah’s Comb Ridge. Photographs that appeared on social media Monday showed the students had written “Fort Lewis College OP 2016” on a rock wall of Fish Mouth Cave. That is hardly the kind of advertising the Fort needs.
The area features a lot of graffiti, some of which dates to the early years of the last century. But as Davis said, “It’s a popular spot to write your name, but that doesn’t make it right.”
No, it does not. And the college is right to take the incident seriously.
Fort Lewis is strongly and correctly identified with the archaeology, cultures and history of the Southwest. Its Durango campus is critically tied to the homelands of a number of Native American tribes and ancient peoples. The study of those peoples, their cultures and artifacts is a core part of the school. And with its history of providing free tuition to Native students, FLC has deep connections to contemporary tribes nationwide.
Treating ancient Native American ruins with disrespect is therefore an insult to the college, one of its most important academic areas and some of its proudest supporters. That it was quite possibly not intended as such is no excuse. Thoughtlessness can itself be insulting.
And, adding irony to insult, the vandalism was done by participants in the school’s Outdoor Pursuits program, which has environmental values at its core. For all that, the college is right to look at this not solely from the perspective of punishment but as an opportunity, as Davis said, “to teach and provide service.”
Under federal law, the offending students could be subject to hefty fines and even prison time. But Fort Lewis is contacting the Bureau of Land Management in the hope that the students could instead clean up the area. And by that, the college means not just the graffiti they contributed but also all the other writings defacing that wall.
That would be appropriate. This is not the kind of behavior that warrants a criminal record, but that it is wrong to deface ancient ruins should be a lesson well learned. Scrubbing a rock wall might be just the thing to ensure that sinks in.
That could also be accompanied by some academic reinforcement of the students’ understanding that, while all vandalism is wrong, the ruins left behind by ancient native peoples occupy a special place in American history, in Native American culture and for Fort Lewis College. And all of those should be shown greater respect.
