It's an unfortunately typical story: An act of vandalism, or any other crime, committed against a minority group rallies the neighborhood to prove to the perpetrators that "hate won't get this community down." The townspeople join hands, sing "We are the World" and espouse the eternal brotherhood of man. They will earn a couple days of news coverage, and then the world will forget and move on, until the next time hateful people act outside the law.Last Monday, an unknown hooligan drew legs and the word "Darwin" on the Christian Fellowship's ichthys, commonly called a "Jesus Fish." The response to this vandalism has the potential to be one of those lovey-dovey, heartwarming-yet speedily forgotten-affairs. That needs to be prevented at all costs.

In his e-mail to the campus community publicizing the defacement on a bulletin board in Usdan, Assistant Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams announced a soon-to-be-held interfaith dialogue. That's without a doubt a decent start, but were this event to be Brandeis' only response, it would rob itself of a very useful opportunity.

First, however, the vandal's intent must be discovered. Either the defacement was the move of a fervently pro-evolution partisan, or it was the act of a worthless pile of pond scum, looking to get some people upset. I hope I am not the first to draw parallels to the vandalisms of the B'Yachad sign in November 2004, when someone-seemingly for no reason other than to cause frustration and annoyance-reworked the sign to read "B'Yach," a play on the word "bitch."

Given that the vandal was probably no anti-religion ideologue, but merely a lowly, pathetic excuse for humanity, it seems unlikely that he would come to the event announced by Adams.

Chances are equally low that an ideologue would come to a place where others demonstrate-with open-minded dialogue-against all he holds dear. So unfortunately, it seems like the campus consensus is to respond with impotence.

There is a thin line between "peace, love and friendship" and "ineffectiveness." It isn't that I disapprove of the "love everybody" approach, but I sincerely doubt its usefulness on its own. Sitting around and preaching to the choir isn't going to change much.

But what will? It's not like Brandeis can-or would-install security cameras in every nook and cranny. And barring some form of brainwashing, people cannot be forced to respect property, let alone opinions. What else is left? Cordoning Usdan off during the night hours?

The members of our community who respect property, if not ideas, are rightly upset by the unwarranted conversion of the Jesus Fish into a "Darwin Fish." But righteous indignation never got anybody anywhere. The Administration, the staff, the students-everyone must make it clear to this spineless, thoughtless and pathetic excuse for a person, whoever he is, that we will not tolerate such baseness here.

There is no easy, obvious and forceful response to the aforementioned crime. There is, however, a way to mitigate the ineffectiveness of the answer we have at our disposal. We must not write off the community discussion as a one-time solution. If this is the response we're going to take, we have to go all the way with it. And, of course, if the vandal is caught, he must be punished to the full extent of the law-but that solution is a no-brainer. If we continue talking about the issues and do not allow ourselves to forget that the Brandeis community values intelligent debate, only then can we prevent our response from being impotent.