The Jena Six rally is bordering on the verge of overexposure. To some people, perhaps it has already crossed that line. However, some things still need to be said in the wake of such a momentous event, so bear with us for the next 426 words while we add our opinion to the thousands of others being circulated.

As members of a professed Social Justice University, we’re proud of the Loyola contingent that drove to Jena to fight for their cause.

Although hot debates swirl around the issue of what exactly constitutes justice in this case, it’s undeniable that Loyola’s busloads of students were seeking it.

They fought with conviction, and they fought peaceably.

Their dedication to the fight for justice and civil rights for everyone should be commended. Loyola couldn’t have hoped to send better representatives. Regardless of whether you agree wuth their viewpoint, they deserve respect for that.

The Jena Sx debate is rife with tumor and vagueness, so it’s difficult to extract fact from the impassioned distortions of so many opposing viewpoints.

It’s troubling, however, that so many elements of the case seem like they belong to the Rosa Parks/Brown v. Board/Medgar Evers era of our country. The White Tree, the attempted murder charge, the black vs. white divide in the skirmishes that led ip to the Six’s imprisonment-all of these elements in the Jena Six case seem anachronisitic.

And let’s not forgot the nooses. Billie Holiday sand about southern trees’ strange fruit nearly 70 years ago, and until this weekend, it seemed impossible that in this century such a dark symbol could be forgiven with a simple suspension. In the Jena High School principal’s defense, he did try to get the students who hung the nooses expelled.

Still, the idea that anyone would have the temerity to use that symbol in the first place is embarrising in a country that prides itself on its strides in civil rights.

It would be hasty to assume that no fault lies with the students. According to the Times-Picayune, the Jena Six beat a student unconscious. That merits criminal charges.

No human being has the right to beat another human being to the point of unconsciousness, regardless of his or her race, gender, religion or creed. And anyone who does take that violent plunge should do so fully prepared to face the criminal charges and consequences, fueled with the same zeal and bravado they were fueled with when they acted ot in fury and vengence.

As the Jena Six trials continue, let us be reminded of our past fights for civil rights for civil rights. Although small cases of racism still ovccur in the United States, blatant discrimination spawning a sea of protestors of up to 20,000 people petitioning for equal treatment should be a decrepit relic of a distant and shameful past.