So let’s get this straight: To respond to the tangible hate speech that soiled our campus last summer, the Government of the Student Body Principles Commission spent two months formulating six abstract principles that seem better suited to a motivational poster with a photo of synchronized parachutists than a viable reaction to intolerance on campus.

Although we admire and encourage the student leadership’s drive to address bigotry on campus, we can’t help but be skeptical about the principles currently open for discussion, and the very concept of a printed page as a vehicle for change.

First and foremost, we’re unsure how a list of six principles printed in course syllabi and read aloud in such influential and well-attended fora as Destination Iowa State and residence hall house meetings will actually change the minds and actions of a small population of bigots on campus.

Having a statement – or, rather, another statement – in place will certainly do no harm, but what tangible changes will we derive from it?

Secondly, these principles are not significantly different from university statements already in place regarding diversity and cultural understanding.

Iowa State’s mission statement for its 2005-2010 strategic plan references the importance of diversity in four places, including in the second line of the text: “Diversity enlivens the exchange of ideas, broadens scholarship and prepares students for lifelong, productive participation in society.”

GSB’s statement of principles isn’t much different from the equal opportunity disclaimer printed at the bottom of nearly every university document, either. If these well-disseminated proclamations aren’t stymieing hate on campus to our satisfaction, what chance does another sheet of paper have?

GSB President Angela Groh has pointed to similar movements at other college campuses, including the University of California-Davis and Virginia Tech. At UC Davis, a list of “Principles of Community” has been in effect since 1990. Melissa Daniels, managing editor at the California Aggie student newspaper, described the principles as a “measuring tool.”

“The most tangible difference [since the institution of the principles] has been that when something happens, whether with an administrator or the student body, the Principles of Community can be pointed it to determine whether we’re failing or succeeding,” she said. “It’s a way to mark the appropriateness of an incident in the eyes of the community.”

Incidents of bigotry, although rare, have occurred on the UC Davis campus since the principles were adopted. The statement’s effect on the number of incidents committed is “hard to gauge,” Daniels said.

So at UC Davis, the principles work solely as a diagnostic for evaluating the inappropriateness of hate speech. Groh has said they would be used in a similar way at Iowa State, and as a stimulus for campus discussion. There’s nothing wrong with judging bigotry after the fact, but doing so isn’t especially meaningful, either. Most people deduce hate speech without referring to an institutional document, and history has shown the ISU community to be quite vociferous after instances of bigotry.

If GSB and the ISU administration are serious about changing the minds of bigots within our community, they should be dealing in tangibles and absolutes, not well-intentioned turns of phrase.

To enact change, we must set a goal and back it up. There have been four instances of hate graffiti on campus since 2002 – perhaps we should pledge not to have another for the next four years. To make good on that pledge, perhaps we should make stiffer penalties for offenders.

One option might be to expel students who perpetrate bigoted vandalism or any other crime motivated by hate. No arrests were made in connection with any of the graffiti incidents. Perhaps we need to focus on what we can do as a community to help ISU police catch these offenders.

In December, Groh told the Daily, “My entire approach has always been to do something tangible that the students can really be a part of.” If that’s true, perhaps she and her staff will reorient their energies toward decisive action with quantifiable results on campus – not a mission statement printed in a syllabus.