GILLMAN JR. | Anonymity leads to lack of credibility, accountability

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For the most part, I put my name to things I write or publish. This applies to my columns, letters to the editor and blog posts, amongst other things.

I even put my name to a piece I penned and placed on a table leading into a presentation (supposedly about diversity) about a year ago at Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium.

In this piece, I called out some of these “diversity” groups as nothing but “hate whitey” clubs.

The look on Associate Vice President of Institutional Diversity Denise Green’s face as she was showing University President Michael Rao the piece was priceless.

But why is it important to put your name to something? Why did I put my name on something that called out a couple of organizations ready to call you a racist at the drop of a hat? It’s simple – I don’t cower behind anonymity.

But it’s more than that. It’s also an issue of credibility and integrity. Wouldn’t you take something more seriously from someone who put his or her name on it? I would.

Of course, with the invention of the internet came the ease of publishing anonymous content that can reach the masses. It’s not even necessary to use a nom de plume anymore when your hit-and-run comment on CM Life can be attributed to “michmediaperson” or “chipskeptic.”

I’ll use an event that occurred in spring 2007 as another example of why anonymity can be detrimental.

A certain individual, who shall remain nameless, was following a group of Student Government Association members who were crossing out some rather hard anti-gay chalkings in the courtyard between Pearce and Anspach halls.

The video was posted on the The Central Monitor, to which I owned the domain name, under the name “centralmonitorstaff.”

Problem is, this video was a really lame attempt at making it look like the SGA members were trying to frame Young Americans for Freedom – despite the fact that the chalkings had already been around for a couple of hours.

I got some flack because people thought it was me; it’s not hard to find out who owns a domain name.

Problem is, though, it wasn’t. It was a hell of a PR mess trying to get that cleared up.

I can understand using anonymity in certain cases where governments aren’t exactly friendly to statements detracting them.

However, I’m not going to kick in someone’s door for writing a letter disputing something I might have had published in these pages.

In fact, I’ll give them props because they actually put their name to their views.

This is more than I can say for a majority of the commentators on CM Life’s Web site, even if they might be advocating views with which I agree.

opinion@cm-life.com