In his article “Good riddance to Undie Run at UCLA” (Aug. 3), Saif Ansari wrote, “I don’t care that Undie Run is now a part of UCLA culture” and that “Undie Run is about recklessness and abandon.” I would ask you why you do not care about a part of UCLA culture and strongly disagree with you on the latter point.
Undie Run is about letting off steam during finals week, and doing something fun and crazy to relax a little during the most stressful week of each quarter.
If some or even many choose to do it drunk, why should this mar the tradition? Out of 10,000 people celebrating this event, why should the “more than a dozen” incidents requiring health services ruin it for the entire campus? That is a minuscule percentage that is unavoidable at any late-night major university event due to the realities of college culture in this country. Like it or not, drinking is part of any celebration in college and that will not change.
To let around a dozen people ruin an event that the vast majority of approximately 39,000 UCLA students cherish as part of their college experience is ridiculous and unfair.
I recently graduated, but my friends and I, in our four years at UCLA, missed only three or four Undie Runs because every one we participated in was one of the best, most memorable nights of our college careers.
Seeing my friends one last time before winter break, summer or graduation was a reward for all the hard work we put in that quarter that meant so much to us. Doing this with several thousand members of the UCLA student body made me proud to be a Bruin.
To say that you do not care about this tradition is fine, but to want to outlaw it just because you have not experienced, or chose not to experience, something that is dear to UCLA students, both past and present, is selfish and irresponsible.
Culture is not something you can create and abolish in an article; it’s in the hearts and minds of the people that practice it and give birth to it. The meaning each person finds in the traditions UCLA offers means they deserve more than an underhanded dismissal by the wrong part of the administration.
Justin Mayer
UCLA class of 2009