2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 3/22/06 Section: Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor,
I fail to see the validity of the use of the word "Anti-American" in Emily's editorial about a professor's classroom remarks. (In Issue 6.)
There's a short parallel between the editorial and the "inappropriate" classroom statements she would expose. Just as her statement seems designed to enrage the monolithic "liberal" elements whose presence on campus (and in California) is a thorn in her side, so the professor in question also probably raged from a sense of victimization and to "wake up" a few of the fans of our New Order.
What is appropriate in a newspaper and a classroom can be debated, but I will never call for Emily's resignation for using her platform for opinion. What's missing perhaps is communication.
Agreed, when we feel that we, as students, dare not speak out to a teacher or in a classroom because of ridicule or the fear of going against the majority, something is troubling on both sides. If teachers instill fear, is not a dialogue. Students also have a higher responsibility to be courageous- I will always love Mario Savio for going that extra mile. Where's the spirit in whining?
It is quite another thing to slink off to the law for some passive-aggressive revenge against Project Censored, or target a campus speaker who dares to suggest that the news is slanted against Palestinians. So we see "Anti-Semitic" also being used as a call to arms. Please.
When the professor in question suggested that 911 airline hijackers did not feel their victims were innocent, Emily confuses this with a tacit endorsement of their violence and stupidity. If objecting to the way 911 has been used as a rationale for everything but full-on genocide is wrong in any classroom, then a student will speak up, unless they have a bigger plans!
I suspect the student in question recorded the lecture not for "study," but on the instigation of someone else, (parents?) or at least he was used after the fact. No matter- this was another "victim," but a victim of whom? Pure cowardice!
Perhaps the professor, the student, or Emily, feel victimized by their minority status and feel a sense of triumph when they "speak out against the madness."
True, a professor does not have the protection of the free press. Still, I wonder how many unsettled little snitches are now emboldened (if not funded)in their lucrative quest to "record a lecture, silence a teacher." One still has to prove charges.With Emily's go-ahead, at least it will not be a boring year! Did you say that we exterminated entire tribes, in math class? That's not math! It's anti-something! I'm going to the Feds! And the school principal!
In challenge is the spice of democracy; censorship is a weapon of assassins who fear revealing.
--Claude Palmer
I fail to see the validity of the use of the word "Anti-American" in Emily's editorial about a professor's classroom remarks. (In Issue 6.)
There's a short parallel between the editorial and the "inappropriate" classroom statements she would expose. Just as her statement seems designed to enrage the monolithic "liberal" elements whose presence on campus (and in California) is a thorn in her side, so the professor in question also probably raged from a sense of victimization and to "wake up" a few of the fans of our New Order.
What is appropriate in a newspaper and a classroom can be debated, but I will never call for Emily's resignation for using her platform for opinion. What's missing perhaps is communication.
Agreed, when we feel that we, as students, dare not speak out to a teacher or in a classroom because of ridicule or the fear of going against the majority, something is troubling on both sides. If teachers instill fear, is not a dialogue. Students also have a higher responsibility to be courageous- I will always love Mario Savio for going that extra mile. Where's the spirit in whining?
It is quite another thing to slink off to the law for some passive-aggressive revenge against Project Censored, or target a campus speaker who dares to suggest that the news is slanted against Palestinians. So we see "Anti-Semitic" also being used as a call to arms. Please.
When the professor in question suggested that 911 airline hijackers did not feel their victims were innocent, Emily confuses this with a tacit endorsement of their violence and stupidity. If objecting to the way 911 has been used as a rationale for everything but full-on genocide is wrong in any classroom, then a student will speak up, unless they have a bigger plans!
I suspect the student in question recorded the lecture not for "study," but on the instigation of someone else, (parents?) or at least he was used after the fact. No matter- this was another "victim," but a victim of whom? Pure cowardice!
Perhaps the professor, the student, or Emily, feel victimized by their minority status and feel a sense of triumph when they "speak out against the madness."
True, a professor does not have the protection of the free press. Still, I wonder how many unsettled little snitches are now emboldened (if not funded)in their lucrative quest to "record a lecture, silence a teacher." One still has to prove charges.With Emily's go-ahead, at least it will not be a boring year! Did you say that we exterminated entire tribes, in math class? That's not math! It's anti-something! I'm going to the Feds! And the school principal!
In challenge is the spice of democracy; censorship is a weapon of assassins who fear revealing.
--Claude Palmer