Letters to the editor

>The case of Royce White

In his April 29 article, Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune puts into focus the issue of Royce White. The prep school expellee just made his announcement that he would be accepting a scholarship to play basketball at the University. I don't know if University Athletics is on the same page with young White. They may have some of their own reservations - as well they probably should, at this point. But I want to focus on the fact that he has the idea he's being offered a scholarship in the first place.

Not too long ago, we honored Yanni at a Commencement. My problem isn't so much with us honoring Yanni - he deserves to be honored. Instead, my problem is that just about as many people know that Yanni is a University graduate (BA '76) as know that Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug was (BS '37, MS '40, Ph.D, '42). Norman Borlaug received his Nobel for saving what many people say is more than one billion lives. How are his accomplishments not shouted from the rooftops of this University? Why is it that I hear more about Lawrence Maroney and Marion Barber III than I do about Norman Borlaug?

Now, I'm not against Royce White being admitted. I'm fine with taking a chance on Royce White - with conditions. I say he can attend, but he has to select a major without the word "sports" in it. I say we place him in IT and let his academic potential grow as much as his athletics. Or how about CSOM and an economics program?

The recent NCAA Athletics Self Study just concluded here on campus. It included a portion that focused on the "well-being of student-athletes on the University of Minnesota campus." I asked myself and others where the study on the well-being of students on the University campus was. Spending resources at an academic institution solely on those students who were blessed with physical abilities is close enough to a travesty.

Kevin Wendt

University student

Conditions at Fort Bragg

In North Carolina, at Fort Bragg, a father went to meet his son after his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. What should have been a happy day for this father and son turned into something much different.

Ed Frawley's son's unit was promised new barracks at Fort Bragg. These were supposed to be completed by the time these young men came back home from Afghanistan; however, to the unit's surprise, the barracks were not completed and they were forced to move back into 50-year-old barracks that, in the words of Ed Frawley, "should have been condemned." On his trip to see his son, Ed Frawley took pictures of the condition these barracks were in and put them on YouTube for the world to see. Anyone who watches the video will be shocked at the living conditions provided to these men at Fort Bragg. Lead-based paint is chipping off the walls, stairwells and banisters are rusting, old broken pipes are now allowing sewage gas into the building, toilet seats are broken and have been mended with cardboard, and the sewage pipes have backed up, causing three inches of filth to fill the bathroom. The army has promised to address these issues at Fort Bragg, but more has to be done.

Our veterans have given their all to protect our country and they deserve nothing but the best in return. We need to write our congressmen and senators and let them know that we will not let our soldiers live in such a manner. It is our responsibility to provide for these men and women, and we need to band together and make sure changes happen. No more soldiers should come back home and be forced to live in such places as the dilapidated barracks at Fort Bragg.

Susan Mayberry

University student

The plight of the conservative student

As I sit in the back of my lecture hall, I am, once again, left listening to the liberal hum-drum that I have become accustomed to in my daily life here at the University. By all means, I support diversity of opinion, and upon coming to the University, I was fully aware that I would be a minority in my conservative opinions, but what I do not understand is why I feel my Republican comrades and I seem to have been silenced.

I understand that it is our choice to participate in classroom discussion, but why is it that when I finally hear a conservative opinion voiced in class I see steam come out of my professor's ears as they try to bite their tongue? This is what I have been taught by one of my professors at the University: liberals are no longer called liberals; they are to be called "progressives." Does that make me "anti-progressive?" Those who do not speak for the "progressives" do not seem to get the time of day in the classroom, which I find very ironic in an institution that so strongly celebrates diversity of opinion … except the conservative opinion. Can't we all just get along?

Jana Goodwin

University student