The student segment of Academic Council was astoundingly united Tuesday in its effort to sway the assembly to not discuss the possibility of warfare in Iraq. Although it's encouraging to see student leaders come together for an important decision, it's disheartening to see them oppose engaging the university's governing body in an important debate.

"It is not a question of free speech," said Adam Raezler, James Madison representative for ASMSU's Academic Assembly. "It's a question of what is our duty on Academic Council."

Raezler is right. Academic Council's first priority should be education. But education extends beyond the reach of the classroom. Education branches out to discussion and awareness and producing students not just with degrees but with the ability to understand how the world works.

Education engages students with the world they live in.

Professor Ronald Peterson said students have a moral responsibility to discuss the Iraqi conflict. Other faculty members joined this opinion showing disgust that students did not want to take part in a discussion that will involve them.

Students will be the ones most affected by the prospect of war because it's their generation who will be sent to fight it. And it will be their generation that will have to bear the burdens of the outcome. If anything, students should be passionately united in this rampant public debate. Students should be discussing the pros and cons of war and analyzing the effects on our generation if war is pursued. Students should make their voices heard.

It is foolish not to talk about these looming issues in an university environment. To think MSU is protected by a bubble and that its students will not be affected by the outside world until they leave with their degree would be naive.