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Friday, December 6,2002
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Commentary
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Editors:
Salena De La Cruz, Pat Payne
Editorial
Lack of diversity
poorly serves
students’needs
Look around. Look at the other students in your
class or just walking by. Look up at the professor of
your class. Who do you see? Or perhaps it’s who you
don’t see. There is a lack of people of color at this Uni
versity — or perhaps there are enough students but
not enough faculty members. We’re not sure.
There are 2, 545 students of color on campus (“Uni
versity reports diversity numbers,” ODE, Nov. 27).
There are more than 20,000 students enrolled in this
University. So, in comparison, of what are the num
bers reflective? The editorial board, despite extensive
argument, couldn’t say.
Who is to say the numbers are good or bad? How
would we estimate the “right” number to shoot for in
a quest for adequate representation of people of col
or? What would the “right” number be representative
of, anyway? Oregon? America? The world?
And is having a certain number of students of color
on campus the end-all be-all? How do we get them
here? While recruiting students of color, it might be a
good idea for recruiters to be people of color as well.
This would, perhaps, help to illustrate the diverse rep
utation for which the University supposedly strives.
After recruitment, retention is the next most im
portant issue. In order to keep these numbers at their
current level, or to keep them growing if that’s what
the community wants, the University should focus on
keeping students here by offering programs that en
gage ethnic minorities and bring them into the com
munity, instead of simply offering a club where they
can associate with others like them.
Perhaps a bigger issue, though, is the educational
experience itself. The five editorial board members
have taken about 200 classes at the University. Of
that number, only five professors were people of col
or. That should be of concern to University adminis
trators. Everyone’s education is poorly served if those
instructing don’t come from a broad cross-section of
American culture.
This isn’t to say that only professors of color can
teach ethnic studies or Asian history, nor that ethnic
ity is the only kind of diversity, but rather that stu
dents need to be exposed to a multiplicity of life expe
riences. Some of that multiplicity has to include
ethnicity, or everyone gets shortchanged.
Less focus should be made on students of color and
more on faculty of color. Most students attend higher
education institutions to expand their horizons and
find out about the world. To that end, we want to see
more faculty of color on campus to share their views
and help shape our own opinions.
Our ideas shape who we are and our skin color is
part of who we are. To become educated, we need to
see and hear what other people think.
Editorial policy
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be
sent to letters @dailyemerald.com. Letters to
the editor and guest commentaries are
encouraged. Letters are limited to 250 words
and guest commentaries to 550 words.
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The Emerald reserves the right to edit for
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Editorial board members
Michael J. Kleckner
Editor in chief
Salena De La Cruz
Editorial editor ;
Jessica Richelderfer
Managing editor
Pat Payne
Editorial editor
Jenna Cunningham
Student representative
Why they have it all wrong
This past week, President
Bush had to realize, once
again, that when you dine with
the devil, you’d better bring
along an extra long spoon.
The president found him
self in the uncomfortable po
sition of distancing himself
from remarks by Pat Robert
son and Jerry Falwell, who
are, of course, rather large
supporters of the president.
The duo once again (as with
the aftermath of the Sept. 11
attacks)
had shot
their col
lective
mouths
off by
calling
Muslims
worse
than the
Nazis
(worse
than
Nazis? I
didn’t
think anyone was worse than a
Nazi) and describing the
prophet Muhammad as a ter
rorist. Bush retorted by re
minding the world that most
Muslims are peaceful people,
that Muslim doesn’t mean sui
cide bomber any more than
Christian means Bible-thump
ing mouth-breather.
I’m glad to see the president
call these two on the carpet,
even if indirectly. Their re
marks are not helpful. People
holding similar opinions have
killed Muslims and Sikhs. The
Falwells and Robertsons of the
world just do not get it, unfor
tunately. They look to the his
tory of the religion rather than
the message.
The message of Islam is
very much like the message of
Christianity (they are from
the same root): charity and
benevolence. Every religion
has sadly had its violent peri
ods. Delve too deeply into
Christianity and you get the
Pat
Payne
The return of
Captain Sensible
Inquisition, the Thirty Years
War, and burning witches at
the stake. The Hindus in India
had some amazingly warlike
kings. In Japan, there was a
special class of Buddhist
monk, the “so he,” who
fought on the battlefield
alongside the samurai and
even gave Oda Nobunaga
some sleepless nights.
But looking factually at his
tory doesn’t seem to work for
this duo. No, no, they’d
protest. Now you’re getting
into moral relativism.
The hell I am (and excuse
the bad pun). What Osama
bin Laden helped to do on
Sept. 11,2001, was evil. Plain
and simple. So were some ac
tions taken in the name of
Christianity, or Judaism, or
Buddhism or any other reli
gion. It’s not making anything
morally relative. It’s separat
ing the wheat from the chaff.
All of these religions have
also done things that have
helped mankind immensely.
Even Islam. It’s thanks to Is
lamic scholars in the Middle
Ages that a number of an
cient Greek classics still sur
vive, including medical
works by Hippocrates. Alge
bra was refined by Arabic
scholars. That’s not going to
be erased because a madman
like Saddam Hussein is run
ning around.
What’s my own interpreta
tion? It’s not Islam that is the
problem. There are violent
people in any religion. For
two examples, take a look at
the late Jerry Rubin of the
Jewish Defense League (on
trial for trying to bomb
mosques and a Congress
man’s office in Los Angeles)
or any of the Christian ex
tremists who shoot doctors
who perform abortions. My
interpretation is that there
are people out there, in any
religion, who are so filled
with hatred and malice that
they will do anything to vent
it on those they hate.
So in the end, rail on the
people doing the killing, not
the religion they choose to
cloak themselves in for their
own burst of moral superiority.
Contact the columnist
at patpayne@dailyemerald.com.
His views do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.
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Letters to the editor
Letter misses
key Iraq facts
Levi Strom’s letter to the editor “Let
ter lies about Bush” (ODE, Nov. 26) con
tains one factual inaccuracy after an
other, and I would like to address the
most serious.
Mr. Strom’s suggestion that America is
not waging war on al-Qaida is bizarre.
Where has he been for the past 14
months? Just last month, a Predator
strike in Yemen killed top bin Laden lieu
tenant Abu Ali and five colleagues.
Mr. Strom claims “investigations ...
have found no substance to rumors of an
Iraq-al-Qaida connection.” However, CIA
Director George Tenet’s recent letter to
Congress states exactly the opposite: “We
have solid reporting of senior level con
tacts between Iraq and al-Qaida going
back a decade ... Iraq and al-Qaida have
discussed safe haven and reciprocal non
aggression. Since Operation Enduring
Freedom, we have solid evidence of the
presence in Iraq of al-Qaida members ...
Al-Qaida’s leaders sought contacts in Iraq
who could help them acquire weapons of
mass destruction ... Iraq has provided
training to al-Qaida members in the ar
eas of poisons and gases and making con
ventional bombs.”
Mr. Strom somehow blames U.N.
sanctions rather than Saddam Hussein
for withholding humanitarian aid from
the Iraqi people. What Mr. Strom fails to
note is that the humanitarian crisis in
Iraq persists despite #55 billion worth
of Iraqi oil sold under the Oil-for-Food
Program because Saddam has subvert
ed that program, working around the
sanctions to buy weapons rather than
food and medicine.
To put not too fine a point on it, Mr.
Strom seems unencumbered by reality.
Sean Walston
sixth-year graduate student
physics
Column forgets to make
logical argument
Meghann Farnsworth’s commentary
(“Blindly following the political flock,”
ODE, Nov. 26) left me amazed. Not only
does she blindly follow party lines her
self by regurgitating the argument that
any action in Iraq would be for the pur
poses of obtaining its oil (were that in
deed the case, the United States could
have much more easily and cheaply fol
lowed France & Russia’s lead in circum
venting U.N. sanctions on Iraq), she then
goes on to deride a small group of Repub
lican students who had the courage to
make their views known throughout the
demonstration.
On my way to and from lunch that day
I stopped near these “sheep” for a while,
and found them standing politely with
smiles on their faces, enduring all sorts of
verbal attacks from the surrounding
crowd. I found their strength of charac
ter encouraging, and this made me feel
good about the students at this Universi
ty. This feeling ended with Ms.
Farnsworth’s article. Rather than ap
plaud the diversity brought by the Re
publican students, she attacked them
with stereotype and insinuation. I find it
interesting that in lieu of an attempt at
any sort of logical argument, she instead
chose to mention that the four or five Re
publican students appeared to be of Eu
ropean descent, while failing to mention
the sea of white faces that made up the
rest of the demonstrators. I suggest Ms.
Farnsworth revise her byline from “Just
think about it” to something along the
lines of “Blind leading the Blind.” It’d be
far more appropriate.
David Mason
seventh-year graduate
physics