The Daily Californian » Letters to the Editor

Letters: May 13 – May 20

Letters to the editor — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:02 +0000

Challenge commonly held assumptions

As a former member of the People’s Park Community Advisory Board and current university staff, I write in response to Lynn Yu’s piece “Peoples Park Problems” and the general low opinion of these pages for Cal students who serve off-campus communities.

If the staff writers and editorial board respected their peers, who devote thousands of service hours annually, they would seek the opinion of at least one of the more than the 10,600 UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students who engage in public service each year when covering matters such as off-campus poverty, homelessness, education inequity, mass incarceration and other issues of oppression and exploitation.

Instead, we get pieces like that of Yu. She states the park is one of the “biggest headaches for the city” and that she has arrived at this conclusion not by speaking with people in the park but through speaking with students. She then blames the stagnant situation on loud “dissenters” who “cry back.” She proposes “relocating Cal Corps to a new facility there” because “the university continues to expand every year.” She ends by stating she would like a park — but one “that’s actually for the students.”

Several longtime Berkeley residents have made incisive comments on Yu’s opinion piece. Instead of adding to their critique, I would like to distance Cal Corps Public Service Center from her remarks, and share my disappointment in Yu’s and this paper’s general approach to reinforcing rather than challenging commonly held assumptions about those on the wrong side of power and privilege.

When we do get stories of poverty and homelessness among your pages, we find not one interview with a student who is actively confronting this issue in the community. Not one student who is tutoring local youth is cited as a source in stories of the achievement gap in the city of Berkeley. Essays on mass incarceration go without citing one formerly incarcerated Cal student.

These are uninformed opinions with no effort to cover a cocurricular activity that enriches learning and that just about one third of the entire student body participates in. They include minimal to zero interviews with student leaders engaged in public service — as compared with the level of coverage of Cal sports, in which around 1,000 students participate. The exception to this — a piece highlighting Minh Dang’s accomplishments — demonstrates the rule.

As Cal Corps’ assistant director, I encourage Cal students to provide direct material assistance to under-resourced communities. Students find many avenues for providing philanthropy or hands-on direct service. Yet simple volunteerism does nothing to change the system that produces such inequity and is as to social change as memorizing dates in high school is to original scholarship in college.

The Daily Cal’s fellow student leaders excel in their public service pursuits when they facilitate reflective dialogue with their peers — dialogue that questions and problematizes the status quo — in the process often speaking directly with community members to hear their stories. The personal transformations that your peers undergo through this process often leads them to center their social change efforts on the voices and leadership of those most impacted by the injustices cited above.

So why not speak with these students instead of floating (even as “fun” filler) the notion that People’s Park would be a suitable site for the public service center? Your decision to run Yu’s piece demonstrates how far removed you are from the topic about which she writes and is an insult to the UC Berkeley students who live the public service mission of the University of California.

Thousands of students commit large portions of their Cal days seeking to transform power and engage in authentic relationships across differences. These students challenge themselves and their assumptions and have genuine dialogue with the nontraditional, localized working class and working poor leadership of color.

Rather than acknowledge her assumptions about the people who inhabit the park, Yu jumps to a farcical conclusion and one that seeks to cut off at the knees any counter argument by painting those who engage in such arguments as unreasonable. Unfortunately, your writers routinely fail to interrogate their assumptions in the writing process, a failure that reflects poorly on your paper.

From my own practice of coaching students to confront material needs in the short term, while exploring the structural dimensions of their service, I have seen them develop a deeper understanding of the social, political and economic issues that surround us. What will it take for the Daily Cal to take even the first step: to care to pursue these same stories with weight and depth?

— Mike Bishop,
Cal Corps assistant director

A misunderstanding of a clear assertion

In his response to my recent article on the proposed Aquatics Center, Vice Chancellor Wilton alleges that I made “erroneous assertions” about financing for the project. Yet I never claimed (nor presumed) that the proposed Aquatics Center would be financed by the same model as the $153 million Student-Athlete High Performance Center. What I asserted, and continue to assert, is that administrators in Intercollegiate Athletics made false statements to the press and to the university about the level of private donations, with the result that UC Berkeley has had to take on significant debt for IA projects.

In claiming that the Aquatics Center is parallel “in concept” to the Student-Athlete High Performance Center, I referenced their being designed for the exclusive use of Intercollegiate Athletics. In none of the documents I have read has a reason been given that the Aquatics Center should be reserved exclusively for Intercollegiate Athletics.

Vice Chancellor Wilton claims that the project “will serve every member of the campus and neighboring community who use university pools.” He suggests that I am misinformed to think otherwise, but M. Kathryn Scott, the director of UC Berkeley’s physical education department, raises a similar objection: “The details of usage … do not show any benefit of increased or enriched water time to any program other than the Intercollegiate Athletics Water Polo and Swimming and Diving Teams.”

The projects the vice chancellor cites as evidence that capital projects can be and have been devoted to particular campus populations that all “support the academic interests of some of our students and faculty.” The problem here is that a significant piece of Berkeley’s precious real estate would be devoted exclusively to an “auxiliary enterprise” of the university — Intercollegiate Athletics — and therefore, the project does not conform to the principle stated in the 2020 Long Range Development Plan — namely, to “provide the space, technology and infrastructure we require to excel in education, research, and public service.” Nor does it conform to the Southside Plan, designed to meet another of the objectives articulated in the 2020 LRDP: to “provide the housing, access, and services we require to support a vital intellectual community and promote full engagement in campus life.” Indeed, as some have pointed out, by eliminating yet another parking lot, the proposed Aquatics Center makes “full engagement” with campus life more difficult for a great many.
I note the vice chancellor does not discuss at all the rejected possibility that the Aquatics Center be located at Strawberry Canyon, where swimming facilities (in need of upgrade and repair) already exist. The Environmental Impact Report acknowledges that this site “would be the environmentally preferred alternative.”

Vice Chancellor Wilton misunderstands my remarks about Berkeley’s crumbling bricks and mortar. These remarks were an attempt to alert the Berkeley community to the deleterious effects of declining state investment in public education. I do not dispute that the administration has worked hard — even heroically — to minimize these effects. What I wished to point out is that the decline in state support for public education makes it a target for venture capitalists. Just as impoverished neighborhoods become investment magnets for developers (without benefiting the residents, often displaced by gentrification), I am suggesting, the land granted by the state for the education of its citizens is increasingly vulnerable for exploitation. In this case, it seems to me that the will of private donors is sufficient to subvert the expressed will of UC Berkeley with regard to the development of available space.

— Celeste Langan,
UC Berkeley associate professor of English

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Letter: Advice for the young women of UC Berkeley

Letters to the editor — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:00:48 +0000

Since the lovely ladies of Princeton and now Harvard have received life advice, as a Cal alumna, I felt obligated to share mine. To all the amazing young women at Berkeley, you do not have to find a life partner before you graduate. All you have to do is begin to find yourself.

In my junior year at Cal, I fell in love with an amazing fellow student whom I met running together for student government. I was running for external affairs vice president and he was running for senate. I lost, he won, but above all, we found each other through our shared passion for politics. Seven years later, we followed our political dreams to Washington, D.C., and lived together. And then we broke up.

I’m forever grateful for my former partner, but we met when we were so young. For many years, we grew together, but then when we finally came into our own, we decided we didn’t make each other happy. When we broke up, especially as many of my peers were getting married, I felt like I had failed as a human being by not finding mine. I still want a husband. Fortunately, I live in Washington, D.C., one of the most educated cities in the nation with incredibly amazing men. I’m positive I will find my partner in due time. So will you! Moreover, a life partner is not a requirement for a successful, happy life. And if you don’t ever want one, that’s a perfect decision as well.

I’m currently an adjunct professor at Trinity Washington University and highly recommend you make use of your college years predominantly to explore what makes you happy. No school on the planet is like Berkeley. Take advantage of the plethora of academic and extracurricular activities. Run for ASUC, join a club, do an internship, learn what you hate to discover what you love. Moreover, your fellow Golden Bears are among the most intelligent, diverse, passionate and quirky people you will ever meet. Cultivate those friendships. Years later, many of my best friends from Cal moved to Washington, D.C., and we still hang out regularly. My friends from Berkeley still help me find jobs, and I have lived with them in Israel, Mexico, and Egypt.

Ladies, you are brilliant! The world needs us Cal women to become the best we can be to use our talents to improve the world. I am still trying to figure out what makes me happy. There is no single dream job, and you will constantly be reinventing yourself. However, your time at Cal is precious and one of the best periods of your life to discover yourself.

Go Lady Bears!

— Pamela O’Leary,
UC Berkeley alumna
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Divestment debate: Faculty letter in support of Middle East peace

Letters to the editor — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 08:40:04 +0000

We, faculty at UC Berkeley, write to urge that you reject yet another call for a selective boycott against Israel and urge you to instead support ASUC Senate bill 158, “In Support of Positive Steps toward a Negotiated Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” We believe that the passage of the divestment bill would violate the Berkeley values of justice, fairness and open dialogue.

The history of Israelis and Palestinians is long and painful. Violence between these communities goes back more than a century, long before Israel was founded. Today, Palestine and Israel are in a state of war, characterized by repeated cycles of mutual attacks, temporary cease-fires and piecemeal efforts at negotiated agreement.

Concrete initiatives for a just resolution to this historical problem are happening in Palestine/Israel, in capitals around the world and even in Berkeley as students on both sides reach out for dialogue. A call for divestment would not change Berkeley policy, let alone move the region forward. But it would close down such conversation, declare one side right and the other side wrong. It would strengthen those on both sides who seek not compromise but total victory. And — importantly for an open community such as Berkeley — it would silence and intimidate our students. In the past, similarly targeted bills have led to physical altercations between students and an increase in racist incidents around campus.

Whereas the peace bill offers positive steps toward a fair solution, the divestment bill seeks to vilify one party to the dispute. Rather than inform students about this conflict, the latter distorts the truth by omitting some facts and misrepresenting others. Rather than envisioning a productive path ahead in the Middle East, it incites anger and mistrust on our campus.

For the sake of co-existence on this campus and in the Middle East, we urge you to support the peace bill instead of the attack bill.

— Professor Robert Alter (comparative literature); Professor Kenneth Bamberger (law); Associate Dean Joan Bieder (journalism); Associate Professor Mark Brilliant (history); Professor Benjamin Brinner (music); Professor Jack Citrin (political science); Professor Mark Csikszentmihalyi (East Asian languages and cultures); Dean Christopher Edley (law); Professor John Efron (history); Professor Malcolm Feeley (law); Assistant Professor Pnina Feldman (business); Professor Claude Fischer (sociology); Professor Thomas Gold (sociology); Associate Professor Ron Hassner (political science); Professor Ronald Hendel (Near East studies); Professor Shachar Kariv (economics); Professor Jonathan Leonard (business); Professor David Lieberman (law); Professor Calvin Morrill (law); Assistant Professor Jo-Ellen Pozner (business); Professor Sheldon Rothblatt (history); Professor Ann Swidler (sociology); Associate Professor Steven Tadelis (business); Professor David Vogel (business); Associate Professor Jason Wittenberg (political science)
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
Due to an editing error, a previous version of this letter misidentified ASUC Senate bill 158.

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Letter: ASUC’s rhetoric of communities is fraught with flaws

Letters to the editor — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:00:44 +0000

I challenge all those who campaigned for ASUC office to one question: What do they mean by “community?”

Community is a word that gets thrown around very often here at Cal, especially during campaign season. Candidates will claim support and endorsement from the ____ community, which sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is.

When “community” is used in that respect, how far does it go? Is it an inclusive or exclusive term? I know some “communities” will hold open forums to select senate candidates to represent them. These forums are publicized in different ways, such as through announcements in student organizations or social-media marketing to spread the word. Even then, putting a candidate up to a vote within the “community” places an unusual pressure on that candidate, as well as that on-campus demographic. If you don’t support a candidate who claims to run on behalf of your community, or who even got your “community endorsement,” are you outside the community?

Even if it is well-intentioned, the whole “community” rhetoric, I feel, is ultimately destructive. No one community feels unanimously about any issue, and no one should have the arrogance to claim to represent his or her community adequately. By reducing your community down to one candidate and one voice, you are stripping yourself and your identity to one unified ideology.

Candidates should acknowledge that their opinions and their vote is representative of themselves alone. There is no shame in recognizing that, and better to do that now than after they are elected and are no longer bound to their “communities.” There is a difference between taking your experiences as a member of your communities into account, when writing a bill or voting on legislation, and doing so with the false support of your entire community. To do so is to ultimately disrespect and oversimplify your community and not represent it.

— Steven Johnson,
UC Berkeley senior
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Letter: Article misrepresented CalSERVE candidate DeeJay Pepito

Letters to the editor — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:13:06 +0000

A presidential feature article printed Monday portrayed DeeJay Pepito — my colleague and an essential part of our senate — as an “aggressive” woman with a mission to propel “minority” groups into the ASUC. I found the article poorly written and contextualized, especially given the amount of times I was in contact with the writer to provide sufficient material for the feature. What is even more interesting to me is that this article reflects the general attitude of the public toward women in politics or in positions of power, and unfortunately this is an ideology that The Daily Californian bought into and left unchallenged.

Entry points for women of color in politics are very few and far between. It is difficult to access institutional resources and pipelines that promote us to positions of influence in which we can make tangible change. We are unlikely to be seen by those in power as worthy of respect. Sometimes, like in Monday’s Daily Cal article, we are criticized if we do not behave the way that the public expects women to act. While men are praised for being assertive, we are called aggressive — and this follows us into the professional and political field. The ASUC should be a place that all students can access, but as a current ASUC senator, I understand that this is not always the case. I’m currently the only female chair of a committee in which men outnumber women five to two. In the senate at large, women take up only six seats out of our 20-member class. You can’t ignore these statistics or their impact on how we are viewed and treated within our communities or the campus at large.

As a woman of color attempting to represent my community and also the rest of the campus, I was personally offended by this portrayal. It misrepresents my work and the work of powerful women in politics working to make change. DeeJay was completely misrepresented in comparison to the white men she is running against for president.

While Jason Bellet and Rafi Lurie are amazing individuals with a lot to offer, their articles have nothing to do with their backgrounds or a “rags to riches” mentality that implies that their work is limited to minorities or communities of color. DeeJay has a solid understanding of these issues, but that is not all that she has to offer. I worry that students might think, because of this portrayal, that DeeJay does not represent them.

DeeJay is running to make sure students can access our chancellor and administration, and that we feel safe on our campus. She is committed to campus safety and combating sexual assault. These platforms clearly don’t only affect students of color, women or women of color. They affect our campus community at large — and while DeeJay as a candidate may break some electoral traditions, it’s time that someone challenged the status quo to support all students at UC Berkeley.

It is time that the Daily Cal stopped perpetuating an ideology that women in politics are underdogs or that they only provide a limited scope of experience and representation in comparison to other candidates. I’ve known DeeJay since before she even considered running for president, and as a personal friend and colleague, I know that she would do an astounding job representing every community on this campus.

— Sadia Saifuddin,
Independent ASUC senator

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Letter: An erroneous court ruling against UC

Letters to the editor — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:00:14 +0000

I am compelled to respond to your March 22 story about the University of California’s appeal of a lower court ruling in a case brought by the media conglomerate — Reuters America — against the regents.

This is not a case about the public’s right to know, nor is it about government transparency. This is an unprecedented attempt by a monied commercial interest to use the university to seek out proprietary information from private parties — information the UC system does not have, has never had and never used. In direct violation of legislative statute, Reuters is attempting, for its own financial gain, to reach through the university to get information it could not otherwise obtain.

Reuters makes its money by selling financial information. It publishes the Venture Capital Journal and the website Private Equity Hub and has a commercial interest in publishing stories about the private equity firms Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, which are highly protective of their data. After the regents were forced to disclose private equity records in 2003 (as a result of a lawsuit), these and other firms blacklisted the university from future funds. This compelled the Legislature in 2005 to enact six new exemptions from disclosure under the California Public Records Act so that public pension funds would be able to continue investing in these funds — which have proved extremely profitable for the university and have greatly benefited our students, faculty, employees and retirees.

The lower court ruling, if allowed to stand, would set a dangerous and unsupported precedent with far-reaching consequences. Nobody who does business with the university, or any other government agency, could be assured that otherwise confidential information would not be disclosed to any competitor or critic or whomever.

The lower court agreed that the university does not have, has never had and never used the documents that Reuters seeks. Nonetheless, the trial court ruled that the UC system should seek out these documents on Reuters’ behalf. If this chilling ruling is allowed to stand, it would represent the judicial rewriting of the CPRA — without legislative involvement or approval — and place an impossible burden and expense on public agencies. It must be reversed.

— Dianne Klein,
Spokesperson, UC Office of the President
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Letters: March 22

Letters to the editor — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:00:30 +0000

The benefits of being homeless

As an alumnus and an occasional Telegraph Avenue and park bum, I would like to commend Jay Scherf for his kind and sensible words (“Homelessness and Telegraph Avenue,” March 15) with regard to the ‘Ave, in response to a column from Ms. Yu, which I missed. It does my heart good to know that some young folks still know how to think for themselves.

You know, being a bum offers a certain freedom. It is good to know that there is some place for you if you just want to bum around for a while. There’s food, served in the Park, companionship if you want it. Some among that crowd of disheveled people are ex-professors. It’s a low-stress environment.

It’s like real third-world-style life going on here in the midst of America. It is there for us to see because it is the truth. There are no jobs for these men. I remember the Woody Guthrie song that goes, “I’m lookin’ for a job with honest pay.” How have we, as a nation, let these young people down? Sent them to a fool’s war and returned them to a wasteland of commercialism; all honest work sent overseas. That’s right, honest work. Where’s that entry-level honest work? Everybody is protecting his money, and the government is in the control of the Republicans. So let’s get tough on the poor. Right.

— Curtis Manning,
UC Berkeley alumnus

Efforts to eradicate hunger in America

I was excited when reading “Interface aims to link restaurants to shelters in need of food” (March 18) because hunger is indeed a serious issue in America. Komal Ahmad’s program will not only benefit the hungry but will also reduce food waste that often harms our beloved Earth. I agree that the Earth produces enough food for its 7 billion people. The problem is inequity in food distribution and big greedy food corporations that manipulate food prices, making low-income families unable to buy food. I hope and pray that Feeding Forward is successful in its honorable mission to end hunger.

— Khalida Jamilah,
UC Berkeley student
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Letters: March 15

Letters to the editor — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 07:00:45 +0000

Homelessness and Telegraph Avenue

Lynn Yu’s column (“Talking on Telegraph. Stop,” March 7) came from a place of such privilege that it rendered the whole article ridiculous. The piece uses the same rhetoric as 19th century British imperial policy. To assume that Telegraph’s ‘potential’ is to gentrify it into some UC outdoor mall is to completely marginalize every non-student who uses the space.

Yu asks what we should to do with the homeless population, as if we mostly affluent students who count our stay here in semesters have more right to Telegraph than the folks who’ve lived and worked on the street for decades. For someone who claims to be sensitive to the homeless, she’s quick to dehumanize them, treating them as obstacles to be pushed out of sight and mind instead of people with rights. It’s a discourse that ultimately does nothing to address the structural problems that create homelessness and instead does everything to benefit the landlords and developers who make millions by ‘cleaning up’ places like Telegraph. As for student safety, Yu’s argument again reveals class prejudice. It seems we’re more likely to be assaulted in the Greek system than on the sidewalk.

There’s a Berkeley beyond UC Berkeley. Yu needs to check her privilege before she keeps doing developers’ marketing for them.

— Jay Scherf,
UC Berkeley student

In defense of Rand Paul’s filibuster

Connor Grubaugh’s criticism of Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster (“Filibuster is still foul,” March 11) fails to understand the fundamental function of the U.S. Senate. It is not meant to be another majoritarian legislature like the House of Representatives. If that were the case, why establish a second legislature at all? Rather, the Senate’s function, as seen in the recent filibuster, is to protect minority opinions from being drowned out by the tyranny of the majority.

Nevertheless, the filibuster doesn’t empower the minority opinion to domineer the whole legislative process. As we saw last Wednesday, Senator Paul’s stand eventually ended, and John Brennan was confirmed. Yet, the filibuster still functions as a critical platform for minority opinions to be heard. In the case of Senator Paul, he brought the issue of drone strikes to greater prominence in public discourse, and Brennan is now CIA director. This is a win-win situation. Would Connor prefer Brennan receive a free pass without a mention of the pressing issues facing his office?

— Casey Given,
UC Berkeley alumnus, former Daily Cal columnist
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Letter: Be aware of the signs and symptoms that lead to suicide

Letters to the editor — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Counseling and Psychological Services would like to commend Jordan Bach-Lombardo on his column “Off the beat: Dealing with Suicide” (Jan. 28).

CPS consulted with UCPD, and UCPD reported that it did a thorough investigation to determine if there was, in fact, a suicide. Due to the anonymous nature of the posting, it could not identify an individual. At this time, there is no known reported suicide of a UC Berkeley student.

It takes courage for survivors of suicide to discuss their thoughts and feelings and the incredible impacts it has on their lives. We know that suicide on-campus or off impact a great number of students, faculty and staff, and we hope that survivors get the support they need whether it is through family, friends, religious organizations or professional counselors.

One of the emotions that Jordan speaks of is anger, which is real in the aftermath of a suicide. He also goes on to state that suicide is a selfish act, which research shows to be false. Most individuals who attempt and/or complete suicide have an irrational belief that they are an undue burden on others and that suicide will relieve others of their burden. In this way the suicidal individual may view his or her behavior, irrational as it may be, as selfless.

People who kill themselves typically do not want to die but want to end their pain; often, they see suicide as the only choice they have. While we can’t always predict suicidal behavior, we can be aware of the signs and symptoms that can lead to suicide. The University Health Services’ website includes a short online Depression Awareness and Suicide Prevention Training. We also encourage students, faculty and staff to seek out the support available to them on campus.

Counseling and Psychological Services provides free counseling to students on an urgent, drop-in basis and by appointment. Additionally, CPS counselors provide consultations to faculty and staff who need assistance with concerns about students. Urgent consultations are also available nights and weekends. CPS counselors can be reached at 510-642-9494. CARE services offers confidential assistance for faculty and staff Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and can be reached at 510-643-7754.

— Susan Bell, Ph.D
assistant director, manager of outreach and consultation
Aaron Cohen, Ph.D
staff psychologist
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Letters: Jan. 29

Letters to the editor — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:00:29 +0000

Dirks responds to Columbia faculty criticism

On Jan. 22, The Daily Californian published a letter from some of my Columbia colleagues that contains serious misrepresentations of what I actually said during the course of an introductory online video interview (still available through the UC Berkeley NewsCenter) that was released after my selection as UC Berkeley’s next chancellor.

At issue is a difficult period on the Columbia campus eight years ago when we became aware of allegations from some Columbia students that certain faculty members had created a hostile classroom climate. The letter provides ample testimony to the enduring contention around this period in Columbia’s past.

Let me be clear: I am deeply committed to the principle of academic freedom for faculty, which entails the full freedom of expression both inside the classroom and outside.

At the same time, I hold to the principle that faculty have a fundamental obligation to promote an atmosphere of mutual tolerance, respect and civility for students, especially in the classroom and in their role as student mentors.

In my interview, I made clear that I had been (as I still am) deeply concerned about ensuring a campus climate that fosters open dialogue and free exchange, especially around issues with strong emotional resonance for students, and I make no apology for taking the concerns of all students seriously, then and now.

In my interview I spoke about the myriad of controversies that had swirled around the Columbia campus during the years from 2003-2005 and how there had been accusations, allegations, mistrust and suspicion on the part of some students around questions having primarily to do with instruction in Middle East studies. When a group of students made specific allegations, I established a committee made up of distinguished faculty and advised by an eminent First Amendment lawyer to investigate the charges.

When the committee completed its deliberations and found no evidence of anti-Semitism in the classroom, we released its report as a public document to ensure transparency and accountability. Disregarding my own words, my colleagues claim that in the interview I described an “anti-Semitic” climate at Columbia and somehow connected that to the “nature of instruction” in Middle East studies.

But as the transcript of the interview makes clear, I was referring to students’ perceptions and feelings, not my own. In the interview, I called attention to the report I commissioned and whose findings and recommendations I accepted back in 2005, precisely because I endorsed it, and held it as an example of my commitment to the values of academic freedom, faculty governance and the responsibility of the university to ensure a classroom experience predicated on tolerance and respect.

As I move from Columbia to Berkeley, I am well aware that I come to an institution renowned for its public engagement and spirited embrace of freedom of speech and debate, and that controversy, political and otherwise, will be the daily diet of my new role.

I want to assure the Berkeley community that I will bring with me the same values that have been vital to my academic leadership at Columbia: commitments to academic freedom; to transparency, engagement and dialogue and to the importance of civility and respect, especially when disagreements are deep and passionate.

— Nicholas Dirks,
UC Berkeley Chancellor-designate

Common-sense gun regulations would save lives

That meandering dribble of an op-ed those Students for Liberty (“The truth about gun control laws,” Jan. 25) wrote in defense of the status quo on gun laws had the appearance of thoughtful consideration, but it mainly addressed the straw man of banning all guns when no one is suggesting anything of the sort.

If any ban were to pass Congress, basic economics suggests that limiting supply will make those weapons more difficult to obtain. Most mass shootings have
been carried with weapons and ammunition purchased without the blink of an eye through entirely legal means, not by wealthy mobsters circumventing rules. At some point, we as a society must say “enough.”

“Maybe someday (it) won’t be the case” that people want to harm others, dither Saxton and Skinner, but that’s another straw man. Gun control advocates live under no such illusions.

Through common-sense measures like an assault weapons ban that limits the size of magazines, we can at least attempt to limit the amount of harm people can inflict in a certain amount of time, allowing decent Americans — arms-bearing or otherwise — a better chance of saving lives.

And restricting ammunition purchases the same way we limit the amount of Sudafed people can buy should be something we can all agree on.

— Omar Yacoubi,
Oakland resident
Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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