Legal Commentary

CNN reported yesterday on the renewed search for a 19-year-old Middlebury College student, missing since early February. The student last was seen leaving a dorm building on February 5. Friday's search was the first in more than one month--purportedly because the snowpack had been too deep to allow for a search.

What is striking about this story is that it is the first national media report I have seen on this story; every other news story had been from the Boston papers, the MIddlebury school paper, or other regional sources. This national silence is striking when compared with the way the media ran wild with stories about the tragic murders of students from UNC and Auburn, just within the past two months, not to mention the international news sensation that was the disappearance (and apparent murder) of Natalee Holloway in 2005.

As you might have guessed already, the missing Middlebury student is not an attractive blond white woman. He is Nicholas Garza, a Latino male from Albuquerque. The media long has been criticized for its excessive coverage of female disappearances while ignoring similar stories affecting minority members of the underclass.

So what is going on? Is the assumption that it only is a tragedy when it happens to attractive middle-class young women? Is the assumption that a man (especially a poor or minority man) is more likely to just up and disappear? Or to be in a situation in which he could suffer such harm?