The newspaper works seven days a week to produce content that ranges from sexual assault policy updates to campus sustainability efforts, from local engagement commentary to our quirky student life, from the latest Norton Simon exhibit to a barn-burner men’s basketball game.

The stories we find and the content that we publish have gone through hours of research, interviews, confirmation and composition. And what we do publish, we do so with consideration of the fact that our print space is limited – that there is only so much real estate in each issue to inform students about the ongoings at Occidental College.

But there’s an intrinsic beauty to having a newspaper at a small, diverse campus like Occidental; one that lies in our ability to publish information that this campus deserves. Because the newspaper is a public good: we are expanding our online content to both breaking news articles and daily blog segments, engaging with the Occidental community via Twitter and Facebook and inviting complete access to our full issues online.

Part of this expansion requires students to be active readers. We invite every reader to write a Letter to the Editor, follow our writers on Twitter, like our Facebook page, pick up a paper and read it, then put it on the nearest coffee table in the Green Bean or the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs. If any reader has a question, they should never feel reluctant to contact any Weekly staff member or myself.

There’s a high likelihood that every student and faculty member – young and old, active and academic – knows somebody who knows somebody who works for the paper and has the ability to communicate with its staff. By contacting and reaching out to the paper, we can ensure that we print accurate, timely and essential information for the greater community.

So take advantage of our resource. Get involved. Start a discussion. Tell us what needs to be published and how to get there. One word at a time, we’re still in the business of serving after 120 years, and the paper has never been stronger.

Henry Dickmeyer is the Editor-in-Chief of The Weekly and a junior economics major. He can reached at dickmeyer@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyHDickmeyer.

Students’ consumption of marijuana in residential residence halls is an issue that must be addressed and corrected. Occidental’s Residential Education and Housing Services (REHS) serves a vital purpose in providing clean living conditions for students, but their policies regarding the smoking of marijuana in dorms must be more strictly and widely enforced.

It is not justified to create poor and disruptive conditions for those with whom we live and those who maintain our living conditions. Students must recognize that consuming marijuana in their dorm rooms is disruptive and compromises not only student health, but also the health of the cleaning staff.

It is also important that REHS and the Occidental community fully understand and implement Occidental’s policies, as well as the consequences of violating these policies. Students should understand that it is their responsibility, as adults, to comply with the policies, to uphold living standards and to respect the rights of their fellow students. In addition, Occidental as an institution must be consistent in enforcing its policies in order to fulfill its obligation of ensuring a safe and healthy learning environment.

A solution that Occidental College and REHS can consider is developing educational programs specifically designed to increase students’ awareness and understanding of the perils associated with marijuana smoking. These programs would demonstrate that while students, according to the REHS Policies, have “the right to individual choice,” that it does not translate to having the right to smoke in their dorm.

Students and staff members can also distribute literature and conduct informative town hall sessions. The combination of literature and annual meetings about the REHS policies for residents can reduce the amount of marijuana that students consume in their dorm rooms and encourage others to abide by the same standards.

In addition to spreading information on REHS policies, an effort to improve enforcement and compliance is much needed. REHS policy explicitly requires, “that all members of the community abide by, and work together to enforce, other policies and uphold other expectations while protecting each other’s rights.” It is important to have all REHS staff conduct more thorough room checks under the suspicion of violations and, when violations are noted, follow through with meaningful consequences. In order to reduce marijuana usage in residential halls, it is vital that REHS staff enforce these policies.

Enforcement and compliance is not just the RAs’ responsibility, nor is it the REHS staffs’ alone. We as students must understand, support and encourage our peers not to smoke marijuana in residential living as it jeopardizes the health of others and ultimately compromises Occidental’s reputation.

The Occidental community must unify in addressing this ever-growing concern. Our failure to treat smoking marijuana as a policy violation discourages students to unite and fight for the healthy living conditions they deserve.

Christian Morales is an undeclared first-year. He can be reached at cmorales@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyCMorales.

Occidental College is an intolerant place. Though students, faculty and administration preach that the school is open and tolerant, they are simply upholding a façade.

Every person is intolerant of something or biased toward and against certain beliefs. It would be naïve to think that any single person can be completely tolerant because people that are completely tolerant are intolerant of intolerance, thereby upholding the catch-22.

The Occidental Weekly has touched on this concept before: calling it the “tolerance paradox” or claiming that students do not listen enough to each other.

It certainly is a paradox. Students claim every day to be tolerant, then turn around and “talk shit” about anything as simple as someone’s shoes or something as serious as skin color and race.

Furthermore, people respond to an intolerant remark saying something along the lines of, “it is retarded for you to say that.” So, basically, it is acceptable to look down on and stigmatize intellectually disabled individuals but not Asian women drivers or African Americans or any other subgroup.

Even more so it is true that we, as a student body, do not listen to each other. And many voices at this school have been silenced—whether a majority or a minority is really not important because voices are voices, and people are people.

And sure, to appease those who think I am just being ignorant, Occidental is tolerant in some ways, specifically to people with the same belief system.

Because someone is male, white and comes from a privileged background, he is told that his opinion is less valid because he does not understand. But people are deeper than the color of their skin, worth more than the money their families have (or do not have) and should not be silenced for any reason.

We get into absurd debates with our classmates and that is encouraged, but we never actually question what we know about a person, or about ourselves. We assume that because they are white, black, blue, etc. that we know something about them or that we know what they are going to say. And we do not.

We go so far as to tell people the kinds of music to which they should listen. For instance, we label music as “bad music” and “good music.” I have been told countless times that I listen to bad music. Well, I am here to proudly say that I love Ke$ha; I could jam out to that all day. But I have also been known to enjoy a Black Keys song; Red Hot Chili Peppers was my favorite performance at my Lollapalooza trip and I have frequented a rave or two in my day.

Yet people tell me that I listen to bad music. That’s equivalent to saying, “you like bad art.” There is not bad art; there is art that one person finds more appealing than another. But that does not make the other decision wrong. It is also like saying, “you think bad thoughts.”

No one should have the right to tell people that what they think or what they listen to is bad because it is all a societal construction of meaningless jabber. We should question who we are and what we believe because faith strengthens itself when challenged. Unfortunately, Occidental just silences those with different opinions: Republicans, Christians, white privileged males or anyone who is not completely politically correct.

For instance, after some hooligan drew a swastika on a whiteboard, Dean of Students Barbara Avery sent an email to the campus stating: “This reflects a lack of understanding of the meaning of diversity that is central to Occidental’s mission and harms all of us by seeking to create an atmosphere of intolerance and fear. Let there be no doubt: efforts to intimidate anyone on campus in this or any other way will not be tolerated.”

Avery presents to the person exactly what he or she presented to Occidental: intolerance. She first assumes that it was in fact a crime of intolerance and then threatens that efforts to intimidate will also not be tolerated. Avery said, in essence, that intolerance at this school is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Thus, we are intolerant of intolerance. Rather than offering an educational facet or answering with concern, she responds with intolerance.

And here is the hypocrisy of Occidental College: we will preach to our dying day that we create an environment of love and openness, but we refuse to extend an education to those who may not know the difference between what is considered right and wrong or what is “central to Occidental’s mission.”

Occidental also forces students to conform to our school’s ideals. At a meeting with the Board of Trustees in January, a student said that he felt like he had to learn a new language in order to converse with other students. This is sad. He should not have to conform to our language of political correctness; we should compromise a bit and accept the background from which he comes.

We silence voices that need to be heard by staging marches, alienating people and by engaging in legal action that could damage our precious reputation.

It is time to put aside our reputation and let our actions do the talking for once.

Juliet Suess is a senior English and Comparative Literary Studies major. She can be reached at suess@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyJSuess.