December 11, 2023, a day like any other. The day had an unassuming quality, with a high of fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and a low of thirty-one. For a day in today’s ever polarized and conflict-driven world, December 11 was almost boring. That was, until 10:22 AM Eastern Standard Time. At that moment, December 11 suddenly became a date which will live in infamy, when Maggie Lena Walker Governor’s School was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the email and reply forces of the Class of ‘27. This was not the first day of bombardment, and it would not be the last. Maggie Walker was at peace with the Class of ‘27, and, at the solicitation of the class and its leaders, was in talks as to how to stop the email floods. And yet, for the first time in the history of Maggie Lena Walker Governor’s School, the affected classes would not take the emails silently. As Katie Watson (‘25) explained it, “I was in my chemistry class, and all of a sudden… my phone just started blowing up… I was like, ‘What is going on?’” Only after the dust settled could a cohesive timeline be penned.

12/11/23: MINUTE BY MINUTE

10:22 EST: The first Class of ‘27 email of the day drops, a FIRC Statistics survey. 

10:25 EST: Class of ‘24 Co-President Andrew Eaton drops an email reminding students not to mass email.

10:30 EST: The Class of ‘27 launches a second email in their strategic offensive, a survey on one’s favorite season.

10:31-11:07 EST: The energetic executive Andrew Eaton once again reminds students not to mass email. Later, representatives of both the Junior and Sophomore classes ask for the ceasing of hostilities, an act of desperation. Their warnings go unheeded.

11:29 EST: A Class of ‘27 soldier offers an intellectual rebuttal, stating that emails should instead be focused upon the Class of ‘26. 

11:52 EST: Ces Wells from the Class of ‘24, inspired by the ongoing class struggles, mass emails the Communist Manifesto to the entire school.

12:09 EST: A fervent soldier of the Class of ‘26, pitying their younger brethren, called out a member of the Class of ‘24 for harassment of the Class of ‘27, and asked those annoyed to just mute the threads or block the senders. The email was also sent to administrators.

12:59 EST: Anne Vincent of the Class of ‘26 summarizes the hostilities of the day with the eloquent and ubiquitous “womp, womp.”

Never before, and perhaps never after, will we see such intense fighting on the front lines of the email trenches. 12/11 truly was the great email chain to end all great email chains. However, now that we can reflect on the great email scandal in its entirety, it’s clear that 12/11 was not a problem, but a symptom. Maggie Walker, once a bastion of equality, is now ailing. The once egalitarian society, where inter-class friendships were commonplace and you were respected upon your merit and not your age, is lost to history. This egalitarian age was an exception, as “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Men like Shorya Malani (‘24) complained about being “nailed to the cross” by the younger classes, while members of those younger classes like J. R. Catrow (‘27) argued that “the Seniors are delusional.” 

It is clear that our infighting has become too rabid; how can Maggie Walker possibly maintain its splendor if we’re attacked from the inside by the vultures circling around? To be quite frank, the email scandal was a humiliation, one that we thought was impossible after the tragedy three years prior in the previous email scandal. The eager and inquisitive reader ought to ask, at this stage, what is the solution then? How can we resolve the class struggles at Maggie Walker? Well, as the lovely Ces Wells (‘24) referenced in her email, the only pathway to ending class struggles is communism. But this raises the question—who is the proletariat, and who is the bourgeoisie? The answer could not be more obvious. It is clear that the Seniors of ‘24 are the bourgeoisie, and the lower classes are the proletariat. The only solution is violent revolution, where the proletariat seizes the means of production. Therefore, the only solution to end class struggles is the complete domination of the inboxes of the Class of ‘24, with a flood of emails from the Juniors, Sophomores, and, sigh, yes, Freshmen as well. In breaking the spirits of our class, in reducing our arrogance, we may once again find the vision of egalitarianism lying beyond the horizon.

Beyond the obvious class differences, 12/11 highlighted another rotting disease that spreads its tendrils over Maggie Walker, our ideological differences. Many students appear to have very strong opinions about whether or not mass emailing is a constitutional right. And beyond just freedom to email, do underclassmen lose their rights at the schoolhouse gate? These questions have not been addressed since the landmark Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines. But that case was decided in 1965, long before 14 year-olds had access to the world wide web, and years before the word “spam” was chanted in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In the 7-2 decision that set the precedent that students, in fact, do have First Amendment rights in school, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that the decision was largely based on the distinction between communication through words and communication through actions. But email spam is both an attack on the school’s civility as well as poorly written communication, leaving the constitutionality of the Freshmen’s actions to be questionable. 

Senior Nate Stewart, an adamant free speech absolutist, could not disagree more with the school’s student leadership’s attempts to eliminate the FIRC emails. He explains his stance on the issue, stating, “As my inbox was flooded I felt vehement hatred towards our [class leadership]. If I had the power I would’ve just let [the Freshmen] do whatever they wanted. What they did that day, standing up to the Class of ‘24 leadership, really changed my life. It changed the way I look at the world.” As Nate’s comments showcase, there are upperclassmen sympathizing with the young’uns. Nate, far from a Marxist, proves that perhaps the Senior bourgeoisie may be able to unite with the Freshman laborers. Nate reminds us that “our nation was founded on the ideas of liberty and democracy…” he continues that “what our [class leadership] did that day, suppressing the voices of the youth, was just downright wrong.”

On the other end of the radical spectrum, classmate Yash Saxena (‘24) could not be found sticking up for any underclassmen on 12/11. To this day, he speaks of the email crisis with the kind of passion that can only be found in a Senior taking advantage of their god-given right to dislike Freshmen. Yash, wishing for even stronger actions against the spammers, remarked, “Back in my day when we used to spam we got punished, but these kids are getting away scot-free. This is what happens when you give underclassmen too many rights: an overturning of the natural order.” Taking away Freshman rights may be seen by some as extreme, but Yash certainly is not the only Senior to think this way. 

Sam McNamee (‘24) had a much more neutral stance on this issue. He recalls the last mass email spam in 2020, noting that 12/11 made him nostalgic. Now, a Senior, his newly acquired maturity gained by serving in the long drawn out war that is the college application process, made him not feel quite as strongly about the spam as his peers. Sam wisely states, “It was legitimately annoying, but as a Senior, I think I’m more appreciative now than when I was a Freshman because colleges spam me all the time and they don’t get punished.”

In 1876, the same year the Royal Military College of Canada first opened its doors, and one hundred and forty-seven years prior to the events of 12/11/23, a new technology was invented. One which could have prevented the immense tragedy and suffering of the occasion. Its inventor, Andrew Carnegie, lovingly called it “Blind Carbon Copy” or BCC for short. Though a bourgeois invention, BCC has been a commonplace tool for emailing since 1977, and allows one to only respond to the original message while not knowing who else the blast email was sent to. This prevents the chaos and turmoil that comes from allowing everyone to reply to everyone. You’d think after the tragedy of 2020, Maggie Walker would have learned its lesson, embracing an egalitarian communist society and the usage of the blind carbon copy. And yet, here we are, sinners in the hands of an angry god, doomed to repeat a history we failed to learn. Three years henceforth, there will come a day, unnervingly calm, and on that day someone will send a blast email, and another will reply to the offensive. What happens next? Well, that’s in the hands of our progeny.