The students reflected on issues of race and gender, and how three of their team mates had been victims of horrifying race- and gender-driven oppression by the legal and academic communities. So they were thoughtful as they sipped wine, nibbled on cookies, picked lint off one another's sweaters and considered the two candidates.

Several said the racial issues were complicated. Barack, after all, is biracial, with a white mother. And Hillary, after all, is married to Bill Clinton, whom the writer Toni Morrison called "the first black president" because

Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

Since Hillary has enjoyed continual ecstatic congress with Bill since the 1970s, then that surely evens out some of her Caucasian tendencies.

So, on racial grounds, the lacross players agreed they could vote for either and feel good about themselves. Racially, Barack v. Hillary is a draw.

On gender grounds, the decision seems clear-cut. Barack, man; Hillary, woman. "Wait a minute," cried one lacrosse player. "Why would we vote for a candidate on gender issues anyway? Isn't this a society where we vote for somebody based on the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin or the content of their undergarments? Isn't the very premise of this story profoundly racist and sexist, that we would vote based on stereotypical matters?"

Properly chastened, your Journal-Constitution reporter asked whether geography played a role in the vote. Barack lives in Illinois and has lived in Asia and Hawaii, Hillary was born in Chicago and grew up in the suburbs. Informed of these facts, the players decided to settle the matter by voting in the time-honored Chicago manner:

Early and often, for both candidates.