Colgate University’s motto, Deo ac Veritati — “For God and Truth” — enlists us on a journey as students. We come to Colgate to dig for that truth and use what we discover to shape opinions and arguments that ultimately form our character, judgment and sense of self.
As part of that journey, around 30 editors of the Maroon-News sardine into our newspaper’s muggy office on the third floor of James C. Colgate Hall every Tuesday. We happily discard our free time and unite around a common mission that has existed since 1868: to record the Colgate story as told by its current students.
Never more present were our voices than on Tuesday, Nov. 5. For many of us, including myself, it was our first time casting a vote for a presidential candidate. Donning “I Voted” stickers from Los Angeles, Houston, New York City, the Hamilton Public Library and beyond, our editors were proud to partake in the ultimate act of opinion-sharing — one that felt as if it reached far past the Colgate “bubble.”
That “bubble” popped a bit when I woke up the next morning. I am saddened that our country has chosen a president who has shown the American people for nearly a decade how willing he is to embrace unfounded conspiracy theories, disregard reality and lie repeatedly without consequence. I understand that many Americans voted on issues that matter deeply to them. Still, I am disappointed that these profound flaws were not enough to dissuade the majority of Americans who decided to hand him a second term.
Like everybody, I carry my own opinions and fears, especially for the millions of people in this country who worry that their American dreams might evaporate over these next four years. But I also fear for the truth. Reelecting a president who disregards reality in favor of his own opinions signals to me that our country’s founding principles of truth and justice have taken a backseat to deception and personal interest.
Our generation will bear the brunt of the incoming administration’s policies and decisions. No matter how limited by time or constitutional provisions, the president-elect has promised to slash climate change regulations, appoint federal judges who may again challenge longstanding civil rights and nominate justices to a Supreme Court that refuses to hold him accountable.
As young voters, this burden uniquely positions us to speak out against injustice. I know many other students shared my sense of disappointment after Election Day. But unless the president-elect decides to tear up the Constitution as a whole (which, as he has indicated, may not be a joke), the First Amendment still exists. Young people may not have a voice as loud as the man sitting in the Oval Office, but collectively, there is power in our opinions — especially when the truth is on our side.
Yet sometimes at Colgate, students too often resort to inner circles of friends or social media to share their voices. Opinions make no impact when confined to echo chambers or released into empty voids, despite now being the time when our voices need to be heard the most. Our social networks too often become zones for reinforcing rather than challenging ideas. This makes our role as students even more vital: We have an obligation to search for truth through dialogue and open conversations, to be fact-seekers in an era of diminishing media trust.
While institutions of higher education are subject to a fair share of (often deserved) criticism, they still offer the chance to become a unique hub of intellectual disagreement and a melting pot of opinions. And at a time when facts are prioritized below opinions, rather than in support of them, Colgate students and universities nationwide face an uphill battle over the next four years to maintain their commitments to the truth and its discovery.
There are platforms where you can share your voice on campus. Consider writing for the Maroon-News, joining campus debates and protests or starting discussions in classrooms and dorms, no matter whom you think might disagree with you. Recognize too that our search for truth cannot stop within our own minds or the boundaries of our campus — it must be an extensive effort that reaches beyond our comfortable Colgate “bubble” and into the real world.
If you woke up on Nov. 6 as heartbroken as I did, take that feeling as a wake-up call. We must work harder to make our voices louder. We must be more diligent in finding and sharing the truth.
It can be easy to feel detached from the rest of the country on a college campus that is quite literally built up on a hill, but it is our job as young students to find and share the facts that will shape ourselves and, eventually, our country’s future. Let us use the unique privilege of our education not just to understand the truth but to champion it — for each other and for the generations to come. This is how we honor Colgate’s motto, and it is how we will carry it forward.
