Letters to the Editor

University Should Drop Charges Against ‘Berkeley 3'

I have been shocked and upset by the focused attack on "the Berkeley 3," ("Activists, University Clash in Sentencing Hearing," Oct. 29). The final irony -funny, if it were not so dangerous-comes in the proposal to "sentence" at least two to community service. Indeed, what they seem to have been arrested for is community service!

And for someone like Snehal Shingavi, who I have had the pleasure of engaging in peaceful discourse with around pressing community issues, 20 hours of community service is but a drop in the ocean of community service he has already performed for many of us.

Mini Kahlon

via e-mail

I am writing to protest any decision which would prohibit these three students from further engaging in meaningful student protests on the Berkeley campus.

These three students are being singled out because of their records, not because of the nature of their last protest. By all accounts, the protest was orderly and well-organized-most importantly, the administration was aware of the time, date, and nature of the activity prior to its occurrence.

The repugnant method of "setting an example" needs to come to an end.

Tina Shim

via e-mail

Sproul Plaza Dialogue

Rarely Strays to the Right

I am sorry to have missed Michelle Myers' column ("Cause Junkies," Oct. 24), it sounds like a classic. In response, a Mr. Tregub provides an impassioned though overdone defense of such junkies ("Social Activists Keep Political Debate Alive on Campus," Oct. 28). In his letter he asks Ms. Myers to suggest a better way and wonders if anyone can imagine Berkeley and Sproul Plaza without cause junkies. Well, yes on both counts. The radicalism that developed from Mario Savio's campaign is hardly laudable.

Rather than promoting free speech and intellectual exchanges of ideas, it morphed into a standard that aggressively and viciously attacks all views save for those that range from liberal to leftist, the latter being preferred. The impact on Cal students is real: in the past ten years the number of political moderate (let alone conservative) speakers has been severely limited. Mr. Tregub's worry for voices expressing hatred and disdain of the United States and the Bush administration or oil companies is disingenuous, as he well knows.

I can easily visualize a Sproul Plaza that is peaceful, clean, and devoid of the extremist propaganda that has personified the campus for decades. I can visualize a campus that advertises for intellectual and respectful debate on all issues with expert speakers from across the spectrum on matters concerning politics, national security, foreign policy, education, welfare, race relations, terrorism and usurping of the US Constitution by the judiciary. Perhaps this happens on the Cal campus more than is publicized. I doubt it when even the likes of Madeline Albright, no conservative, is heckled and insulted. Speakers won't waste their time and certainly not the more controversial conservative ones.

Despite Tregub's casual claim, the Academy in America is to leftist agendas what the petri dish is to bacteria. Rather, it is that the left has realized its goal: moderate and conservative thought has been purged from the Academy.

Witness the hysteria and slander against David Horowitz' inspired Academic Bill of Rights that threatens the status quo on campus. It is my hope that UC Berkeley once again makes a name for itself for boldness and courage in swimming against the tide. Adopt the Academic Bill of Rights, pursue (not just hope for) moderate and conservative lecturers, professors and courses and create a vibrant, productive and reinforcing atmosphere of debate and original thought.

The tactics of radical protest, shouting down the opponent, slandering the opposition and stomping on the rights of other students and people in general should come to an end. In short, the left has to clean up its act and Cal's Faculty Senate, administration and Alumni Association should be the champions of this overdue change.

Richard Stanaro

UC Berkeley alumnus

ASUC Should Be Thanked For ‘No on 54' Spending

In the editorial "Struggling to Survive with Limited Dollars and Sense," (October 28, 2003) The Daily Californian makes clear how out of sync they are with the political sentiments of students on campus, and their basic hostility to students' right to free speech. As the senator who sponsored the motions which called for the ASUC to join the petition for Ward Connerly's resignation, to endorse the Civil Rights Boycott of Coors Beer, and to demand that the university administration respect the autonomy of the ASUC, I applaud the senate for supporting campaigns for integration and defending our own ability to represent the interests of UC Berkeley students.

The ASUC is not an adjunct of the administration. We receive our own funds from students. We are democratically elected to represent students' rights and interests, regardless of the administration's approval. Our autonomy was won out of student struggle.

The ASUC had not only the right, but the obligation to use our resources to defeat Proposition 54, and to defend our ability to track racism and discrimination. The UC Board of Regents and Chancellor Berdahl came out against the initiative last spring. All sectors of the UC system united to defeat an initiative that, had it passed, would have endangered the entire mission of the UC system. Rather than trying to punish the ASUC and Graduate Assembly for our campaign to defeat Proposition 54, the UC administration ought to be thanking the students for defending the very institution that they themselves oversee.

The overwhelming majority of students at UC Berkeley opposed Proposition 54. Yet, in the same editorial, the Daily Cal called our campaign against the initiative "a serious misrepresentation of the students' interests." Whose interest is The Daily Cal representing with this evaluation? I am sure that the paper defends its own autonomy and ability to allocate its resources in the way it deems best. Free speech is a right that newspapers, as well as students, hold dear.

Yvette Felarca

ASUC Senator

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