Samurai incident used in SGA campaign
Reporting about the SGA, not a record of it: The Johns Hopkins News-Letter published this and the SGA did not write it, file it, or approve it. The archive holds it because the article itself uses the phrases “sga” and “student government”.
Summary
- This News-Letter article covers a freshman campaign poster referencing a fatal samurai-sword incident and the reactions it drew.
- The paper reported that Residential Life and the Committee for Student Elections appeared to approve a poster reading, “9 out of 10 Hopkins Samurai are Voting Wyatt Larkin for President.”
- The article says CSE Chair Dylan Cowart defended the poster as a freedom-of-expression decision and said the committee could consider removing it if concerns arose.
- The reporter writes that SGA President Marc Perkins called the advertisement “distasteful” and said he would not have approved it; the article adds that no complaints had been filed.
- According to the article, Hopkins student John Pontolillo struck alleged intruder Donald Rice with a samurai sword, and Rice died at the scene.
- The News-Letter reported that Professor Melanie Shell-Weiss urged the Hopkins community to mourn the incident rather than celebrate violence.