To the Editor:
That fewer than 150 people donated blood yesterday at a drive “to honor the students — involved in the tragic automobile accident on Jan. 17” is an embarrassment to the Yale community. Despite notices in the Yale Daily News and in the gym, and despite the recruiting efforts of volunteers in front of the bookstore, Red Cross personnel and athlete volunteers found themselves waiting on empty beds amongst a paucity of donors.
I have attended about a dozen blood drives, volunteering early in high school and donating as soon as I turned 17. It saddens me to share that yesterday was the first time I didn’t encounter a wait. I would rather see a hectic, disorganized drive with an hour wait than the deserted function I witnessed at Payne Whitney.
With all their talk of saving the world and protecting the lives of the innocent, left-leaning Yale students lack the fortitude to act on their so-called convictions. Rather than giving blood, which tangibly, peacefully helps to save lives, Yale students wrap themselves in the flag, using cowardly protests as attempts to further whatever cause they deem worthwhile. While grand political aspirations marked by emotionally charged protests no doubt have their appeal, romantic activism is not the same as action. If our country’s blood supply depended on the likes of the Yale community, those in need would go wanting.
From those to whom much is given, much is expected. Yale can do so much better.
Ellen A. Jacobson ’04
February 3, 2003