Letters

Shapiro reaches wrong conclusion I am wondering
if Ben Shapiro is feeling the teeniest twinge of guilt over his
duplicitous presentation of my remarks on Mumia Abu-Jamal
(“Effects of
campus liberalism far-reaching,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint,
Nov. 20). His quote totally misrepresents my position, and is in
fact cobbled together from some of my statements and his personal
construction. He presents my “far-reaching” comments as
if I delivered them in the classroom, and himself as a frightened
student suffering their onslaught. In fact, I have never
mentioned Mumia Abu-Jamal in the classroom, and I made my
statements to Shapiro in a series of telephone exchanges when he
presented himself as a Daily Bruin columnist trying to make up his
mind about the case. I don’t remember all my comments
verbatim, but I insisted on two points: 1) that there were enough
discrepancies in the case to warrant a new trial and 2) Mumia
Abu-Jamal’s situation is a spectacular example of the problem
of the disproportionate number of black males on death row
throughout the country. Finally, I do not believe that he is
“definitely” innocent; this is for a jury in a fresh
trial to decide.

Albert Boime Professor Art history

University should facilitate more student
voting After reading about next year’s political
candidates for state offices (“Candidates are in for next
year’s statewide election,” Daily Bruin, News, Nov.
19), I was surprised to see so many people running who I had never
heard of before. The article said that 77 people are running from
over seven different political parties. With so many candidates, we
will probably be inundated with junk mail, phone calls and
television ads telling us what these politicians stand for. Yet
most students can’t even choose to support a candidate
because the many students are not registered to vote. At UCLA, a
student has more opportunities to apply for a credit card than to
register to vote. On the university’s bulletin boards and in
its shops, credit card applications abound. Rarely is this the case
for voter registration forms. My point isn’t to eliminate
credit card marketing, but instead to point out that this situation
represents the lopsided nature of the values being communicated to
students. It is of little surprise, then, that in such an
environment, civic activities such as voting are valued so little.
Who do I blame? UCLA and its administration must shoulder some of
the blame. They have not fully exercised the Federal Higher
Education Act, which asks that publicly funded colleges and
universities make a “good faith effort” to supply
incoming students with voter registration forms. I don’t know
about you, but I have never received a voter registration form, nor
have I ever been told where I can get one. The only place where I
have ever been notified about a chance to register is by
CALPIRG’s Youth Vote campaign, which is a student-led
on-campus group not sponsored by the administration.

Mark Thornton First-year History