COLUMN BACKLASH: Outrage aimed at UNLV paper

Student's opinion piece about Christopher Columbus shakes up campus

By BROOKE E. ROSS
REVIEW-JOURNAL

UNLV students had a tough time grabbing a copy of the Rebel Yell before class Thursday morning.

About 30 distribution stands for the campus newspaper were wiped out of the latest edition. The copies were tossed into several garbage bags and left in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas amphitheater, covered with a sheet that read, "Rebel Yell Wake Up."

Pages of notebook paper covered the garbage bags with more messages, including, "Consume less propaganda, create more truth," and "Marriott is a racist."

Student columnist Alexander Marriott is not surprised.

The UNLV junior has been called several names on campus in the past couple weeks. He has been compared to Adolf Hitler and accused of supporting "genocide, rape and slavery." It has also been suggested he "take a flying leap."

The comments came in response to Marriott's opinion piece, "Christopher Columbus, we salute you." The column ran in the Rebel Yell on Sept. 29, and the paper is still receiving letters from the university community expressing outrage.

The Review-Journal reprinted the column in its Oct. 12 opinion pages.

Marriott said the purpose of the column was to remember Columbus for bringing Western civilization to America. He said the UNLV newspaper usually prints negative stories about the explorer, and he wanted to present another opinion.

But some of his phrases, including the assertion that some societies are "better than others" and a reference to American Indians as "primitive Stone Age level savages," have some screaming racism.

"I knew there'd be a good amount of people who'd be shocked," he said. "I didn't expect it to go on like this."