If Brian decides to sue you (although he seems quite nice. maybe i shoulda got in on that speed dating thing) I will defend you. I paid attention in torts, and we used the same book/ covered the same stuff as my friend who was at Harvard taking the same class. I did not read about ketchup of any kind during said class, so I’ll be all over it.

Love,
Your BU Law friend who got rejected from Harvard but’s still kinda smart

So, my name is Brian and I’m on the HLS Student Government Board. In fact, I wrote the post to which you so eloquently refer. Your post is both entertaining and reasonable, but I feel I must offer at least a bit of an explanation of our position. (This explanation is simply my opinion – admittedly informed by my role in the Government – and does not represent the official opinion of the rest of the group.)

First, the Student Government’s current mission is to improve student quality of life and to facilitate student-administration communication. Like it or not, it is often the small things that improve people’s quality of life. And if brand of ketchup is what people bring to us as important to them, we will work on it. We help out wherever we can, and if it’s fixing potholes that people want, that’s what we try to do. That being said, we have been involved in other, weightier, projects this year as well. Among other things, we worked extensively with the administration on implementing the proposed new grading system and on moving our “on campus interview” program to an earlier date – a change which sounds small but that is logistically hugely significant to all members of the school community, and that has significant impact on those students seeking jobs.

Second, there are a ton of organizations here at HLS that do a lot of community outreach. There always can and should be more, but currently that is not a role that the Student Government has focused significantly on. However, all HLS students are required to fulfill a certain number of pro-bono hours to graduate, and most exceed the minimum number of hours required. I would argue that by improving all of the students’ lives here we make it a bit easier for them to do that work.

And finally, the two are not mutually exclusive. There is no reason why we can’t get better ketchup and help to get a better world. We always can, and must, do more. This is just what we’ve done so far.

Regardless of whether any of this makes you feel any better about our role, I appreciate you taking the time to take a look at our blog and to read this comment.

All the best,
Brian

p.s., I could never sue you. I was too busy figuring out the difference between Hunts and Heinz ketchup to pay attention in Torts.

You know the saying: “First they came for the ketchup,”

Anyways, good stuff, though I seem to remember that our freshman year at BU (my only year at BU) the student government protested the replacement of Heinz with Hunt’s ketchup…and we got our Heinz back. Not only those smarties across the river who need good ketchup and are willing to fight for it!