You know the situation all too well. There you are, enjoying a meal at Café Mac, when one of our more diverse students walks up. Maybe he doesn’t look too different from you, but some insensitive soul feels the need to snickeringly comment on his clothing, food choice or speech.

Well, so what if he is wearing a tunica and toga? So what if he chooses gramen over ketchup? So what if he speaks a dead language? Macalester may not be a significant center for students from Ancient Greece and Rome, but those we do have suffer a plethora of prejudice in their years here. I, for one, think that it’s high time we, as intelligent and diversity-sensitive Macalester students, stop all this needless discrimination against students of alternative temporal periods.

This intolerance is already causing obvious change throughout the campus: the number of students from Ancient Greece and Rome has fallen every year since 1973. In fact, this year’s first-year class, despite significant recruiting efforts, contains no students from Ancient Greece and only one from Ancient Rome. Said the student: “Non puto Macalestrum esse locum summum studentibus antiquis. Magnopere malumus ad scholas aut Romanas aut Graecas adesse...ego Macalestrum veni ut vivam cum studentibus alterarum experientiarum, sed ita, non me bene receperunt.”

Other notable changes that come with the school’s dwindling number of ancient students include the lack of amenities for such students: gramen and glires are offered in the cafeteria only on weekends; all the best lecticarii have left campus for more lucrative jobs in packing and shipping; and Weyerhauser Chapel will no longer allow students to either sacrifice bulls to Iuppiter (citing excessive blood stains on the furniture) or celebrate Lupercalia (citing excessive promiscuity).

However, Macalester’s ancient students can continue to draw support from a strong Classics department and supportive classical students and professors. One major success for Ancient Roman and Greek students and scholars alike is that last week the Legislative Body voted to charter a chapter of the Senior Classical League (SCL), a national organization that promotes the study of classical civilization. Perhaps the SCL can promote a better understanding of our ancient students at Macalester, but it will require an effort on everyone’s behalf to end all the discrimination against such students so they’ll agree to come here at all.