NEWS
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Another letter was printed in the Daily today about Hanink's column, bringing the tally to 2 in support of her, and 2 against:"To the Daily:
I think it is interesting that the Daily printed Jim Trout's letter ('Double standards' favoring minorities unfair to majority, 09/23/03), regarding Johanna Hanink's column ('Members-only' diversity, 09/22/03), as his comments about his visit to the University with his son dangerously introduces, if not perpetuates, the idea that the African-American lounges are restricted to blacks only. Though (hopefully) all of the upperclassmen of the University know that Trout's son didn't know what the bloody hell he was talking about when he made that glaring, obviously uneducated mistake in telling that to his dad, I can still imagine some encouragable freshman with a snot bubble coming out of his nose reading the response and jumping to that ridiculous conclusion that there would actually be a lounge in a University reserved exclusively for one ethnicity.
Almost more dangerous was the error that Hanink makes in the column itself. She speaks of the "minorities only" meeting that took place last fall term in the wake of the Daily boycott, but she was very off-base with her factual information. Had Hanink even attempted to attend the meeting herself, she would have learned not only was it not restricted to minorities, but that she would have been in good company with other white representatives of the Daily! She cites an e-mail as advertising it as "minorities only," though I and no one else I have spoken to received an e-mail with that specific wording, and Hanink's journalistic background should allow her to know better than to anonymously cite any e-mails as reference points.
I doubt this letter will make it in the paper, but, not for lack of trying, some very important facts needed to be cleared up in this mess of crass assumptions.
Dustin J. Seibert
LSA senior"
Posted by Rob at 11:11 AM
