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Nebraskan
Edhorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
JeffZeleny..Editor, 472-1766
Jeff Robb.......Managing Editor
Matt Woody.......Opinion Page Editor
DeDra Janssen....Associate News Editor
Rainbow Rowell . .Arts & Entertainment Editor
James Mehsling ..- •.Cartoonist
Chris Hain.Senior Reporter
Remember
lost futures make tragedy even worse
The bedroom of brothers Chase and Colton Smith will remain
untouched for now.
Their beds, a few feet from each other, will remain made. Their
toys tucked away. Their clothes folded in their dresser and hung in
the closet.
Three-year-old Chase and 2-year-old Colton shared the same
room. Played together. They would have grown up together.
Wednesday, Chase and Colton died together.
The heart-wrenching stories emerging from Oklahoma City only
become worse when one thinks of the futures lost in the rubble of
the Alfred Murrah Federal Building.
Relatives, co-workers, funeral homes and other officials have
provided a list of 12 of the at least 13 children who have been con
firmed dead, including Chase and Colton.
BayleeAlmon, 1.
Danielle Bell, 1 1/2.
Zackary Chavez, 3.
Anthony C. Cooper III, 2.
U Antonio Cooper Jr., infant
Elijah Coverdale, 2.
Aaron Coverdale, 5.
Ashley Eckles, 4.
' Garrett, Tev in 1. >
t Domonique London Johnson, 2.
Losing these children makes the tragedy even more hard to take.
They were innocent.
We saw Baylee as rescue workers tried to save her. We saw the
photograph in newspapers of Sgt. John Avera clutching Baylee’s
limp body as he handed her to firefighter Chris Fields.
Baylee died before she reached the hospital. We will never see
Baylee again. Her parents will never see their daughter again. No
one will know what she could have achieved.
At least her parents know their daughter was well-cared for after
the bombing.
“We never would have known she was treated so good if you
didn’t take those pictures,” Aren Almon, 22, said to Charles Porter,
the bank employee who took the photograph of her rescue.
Children we didn’t even know will forever remain in our minds
and our hearts.
We also will remember the image of Chase and Colton’s mother
at Sunday’s memorial service. She stayed composed through most
of the ceremony, clutching a photograph of her children, two teddy
bears that symbolized her loss and two yellow flowers.
Rescue workers will find more children as they are able to search
the second floor day care. We will hear about other futures that are
now lost.
Life will be hard for the parents of these children, not only today
but when the children should have entered grade school. They will
remember when their children should have graduated and when they
should have started their own families.
‘Those who are lost now belong to God. Someday we will be
with them. But until that happens, their legacy must be our lives,”
President Bill Clinton said as he stood before Oklahoma City mourn
ers Sunday.
The country will remember with those parents. We should al
ways stand with them.
Editorial policy
Staff editorials represent the official
policy of the Spring 1995. Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editpri
alsdo not necessarily reflect the views
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Murder leaves eternal stain
What it comes down to is the
nature of forgiveness, redemption or
maybe rehabilitation is a better word
when we talk about crime and
punishment. Do we really believe in
clean slate^? ^re there some dues
that are never fully paid?
For more than a week now, the
talk of Boston has been a Cam
bridge high school senior named
Gina Grant. On April 2, this 19
year-old appeared in The Boston
Globe as a model of how resilient
kids can be. She was an all-A
student, the captain of the tennis
team, a devoted tutor for disadvan
taged kids.
Gina Grant had succeeded,
despite die fact that she was an
orphan. At 11, she’d lost her dad to
cancer. At 14, she’d lost her mom to
circumstances that, she said, were
too painful to describe. But she’d
won acceptance to Harvard.
Within days, however, we
learned about the death that was too
painful to describe. In 1990, Gina
Grant had murdered her mother. The
model student had committed
matricide. She’d done time—six
months in a South Carolina juvenile
facility—before being allowed to
come here, to start again.
Maybe Harvard has been
impressed by what one source called
“the orphan angle” on this applicant.
But now they had second thoughts.
The statement reversing their offer
said (vaguely) that admission could
be rescinded if students lied on their
application or if they behave in
ways that “bring into question
honesty, maturity or moral charac
ter.”
Since then, the debate from
Harvard Yard to “Nightline” has
been about the rights of a juvenile
offender and the behavior of the
university—about unsealed records
and second chances.
Those who take Gina Grant’s
side talk about the “exemplary life”
she has led since the “mistake” that
Ellen Goodman
resulted in “the tragic death” of her
mother. Those who do not talk
about the mother’s crushed skull,
about the repeated blows from a
candlestick, about the blood.
Defenders criticize the 14-year
old as an emotionally battered girl
who finally struck out against her
alcoholic mother. Detractors dismiss
this Menendez-sister defense and
portray her as a rebellious teen who
with her boyfriend tried to concoct a
suicide story by sticking a knife in
the dead mother’s throat.
There are people, at her new
school in Cambridge, Mass., who
talk of her as strong, a survivor.
There are people in her old town in
Lexington, S.C., who talk of her as
hard, remorseless.
In the same dialectic, some see
Harvard as “arrogant,” intent on
imposing its own, second punish
ment on a 19.-year-old. Others see
the university as stung by the
orphan, wary of explaining Grant’s
past to her future roommate’s
mother.
But underlying this noisy
argument is a quieter, more complex
question: Is there any such thing as a
truly fresh start?
Most of us believe in rehabilita
tion, the idea that people, like houses,
can be stripped down to the walls and
rebuilt But we also believe that the
old structure may remain intact under
the new wallpaper.
When Mike Tyson was freed
from jail, we said he paid his dues.
But many recoil from his renewed
celebrity. When a sex offender is
released, he’s done his time. But
more than one family would want to
know if he moved onto the block.
What student wouldn’t,want to
know if a convicted rapist was on ~
her dormitory floor?
The juvenile justice system is
built on the premise that a child
deserves a second chance. It
promises to seal the records, wipe
out the past. But it can’t wipe out a
community’s memory. In this
celebrated case, Grant was never
more than a Nexis search away from
revelation. The people protesting
Harvard’s arrogance today might
have had a lot to say about its
ignorance tomorrow.
Gina Grant was not, after all,
convicted of shoplifting. She is
guilty of murder. I have no idea
what is in her mind or in her
nightmares. Not even the people
who wish her a clean slate would, I
imagine, wish her a clean con
science.
No matter what the protesting
students believe, being denied
admission to Harvard is not one of
life’s crudest blows. It’s not
reneging on the world’s promise that
a juvenile offender can lead a full
life. Ask the other high school
seniors who applied to Harvard —
nine out of 10 who got rejection
notices last week. In the case of
Gina Grant, Harvard was well
within the boundaries of fairness
when it acted on its doubt.
This enormously bright and, yes,
resilient young woman has the
respect of her teachers and all those
who have watched her survive and
help others these last years. She will
make her way. But I suspect she
already knows that there are acts in
life that are simply irrevocable,
utterly irreversible. Murder is one of
them. Afterward, the slate is never
again quite clean.
® 1995 The Bostoa Globe Newspaper Com
paay
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