Letters to the Editor

BSU does not care about diversity

I agree with much of what China Veldhouse has to say on the issue of Tam Dinh’s departure from the university (Letters to the editor, April 22, 2002). As she points out, Boise State DOES NOT CARE ABOUT DIVERSITY. This is pretty clear to most of us. Dr. Blake’s comments are insufficient at best and cowardly at worst. But we must not look solely at Blake’s role in all this. We must of course place deserved blame on President Ruch and a State Board of Education that cares more about dollars than its own faculty, staff, and students.

I think also we need to take into consideration the actions (or rather, inactions) of the two levels of responsibility above the Coordinator of the Cultural Center.

How hard have the Associate Director of Student Activities (Rob Meyer) and the Director of the Student Union and Activities (Leah Barrett) pushed to defend diversity on this campus? Not much; they’ve been most recently busy with the 60th anniversary of the SUB.

It’s way past time that we had a group of administrators who actually cared about the people they purport to serve. It is also way past time that we had more people like Tam who are not willing to be muzzled and who will speak out against insupportable and inane institutional policies.

And for anybody who thinks this is an isolated incident, I say watch out. I give it less than a year before Melissa Wintrow resigns for the same reasons Tam did.

-Angeline McDowell
Alumna
Boise State University

Abortion more than black or white issue

An open letter to Dr. Louis Simon:

When St. Paul’s Catholic Student Center offered me a position as Social Justice Coordinator, I hesitated to accept because I knew that a tremendous part of the job would involve coordinating the Right, Wrong, or Justified display that recently graced our campus. In the aftermath of the controversy, however, I have no regrets. You hold that the signs did not promote free speech, but never had I witnessed my BSU peers speaking more freely. The display provoked an open exchange of ideas that theoretically should prevail in our classrooms. With no inhibitions, no social pressures, and no unwritten power differential emanating from their professors, students were talking. Unfortunately, after reading your April 8 editorial, I realize that these voices do not come without restraint.

I see a lot of statements like yours, Dr. Simon, and I normally set them aside, declaring them devoid of any logic fit for rational discussion. What concerns me is that the name-calling, slandering, and faulty reasoning came from you, a Boise State professor. Your place of employment alleges to promote an atmosphere of pluralism, diversity, and tolerance. Based on your remarks, I fear that your classroom may be a different matter. I have chosen to share this letter with the BSU community because I am concerned not with correcting you personally so much as debunking the myths that you so freely promote.

Contrary to your claim, the pro-life philosophy transcends religious boundaries well beyond the loosely defined “fundamentalism” that you cite. Both Orthodox Judaism and most of the Islamic world condemn abortion, and Hindu students may feel offended that you forgot to mention their religion as one that has revered life for over 5,000 years. Yet in order to simplify a viewpoint that counters your own, you have judged a multifarious cluster of races, ethnicities, and religions by linking them all to hatred and violence.

Al-Qaida terrorists are no more Muslim than the bombers of abortion clinics are Christian; both defy their religions in committing abhorrent acts that any true pro-lifer shuns. God forbid that the peace-loving people who defend life condone the acts to which you have so inflammatorily linked them. Pro-lifers belong to a community too infinitely diverse to describe or fathom. Opposing abortion, you see, is not a right-left but a life-death issue. Still not convinced? Try my own profile: Pro-life, leftist, feminist, Nader-backing, vegetarian, pro-animal rights, anti-death penalty, canvas-bag-to-Winco-toting Roman Catholic. Pigeonhole that.

In many respects, the issue of religion is a moot point. The contract for Right, Wrong, or Justified, signed by all who staffed the display, specifies: “If asked a secular question, I will give a secular answer. If asked a religious question, I will give a religious answer.” In short, God was not allowed into the conversation unless invited. And for a good reason.

The raw facts on fetal development derive from science, not religion. Skeptics have access to a plethora of apolitical, highly scientific sources on the issue, beginning with their biology textbooks. Only after science states the obvious does religion-or sound, secular ethics-step in to declare a concept that we ideally would take for granted: Murder is wrong.

Dr. Simon, I am as sorry as any true human rights proponent that you view the protection of human life as a “political agenda” and not a moral obligation. The students with the courage and integrity to staff the display were not on Capitol Hill campaigning to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Why should they be? The issue is one of demand and not supply. If their message catches on, abortion clinic doors will close permanently not because of any legislation, but because we will them to do so when our enlightened culture resolves to uphold the personhood of every human life. How is that for “pro-choice?”

Ultimately, your editorial left me more saddened than shocked. For 28 years, pro-lifers have shouldered the blind labels that you hurled: “fundamentalist,” “patriarchal,” etc. I would, however, expect more from a college professor. Now that you have openly avowed your intolerance, will students of other faiths, beliefs, and cultures feel comfortable in your classroom? Or are they in danger of becoming mere statistics of discrimination on college campuses? I will close with a simple plea: Please be a positive role model to us. Only this way will the minds that you help shape leave BSU looking past narrow-minded labeling towards the pursuit of higher truth.

-Gwynne Cameron

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