To the Editor: As a member of the women's crew team, I have suffered the repercussions of the department's ambivalence. My teammates and I are all too aware that Athletic Director Steve Bilsky's priorities understandably include us at the bottom of the list. Both swimming teams and four other women's teams also await rescuing from the abysmal level of the department's priority list. Hut's column correctly stated that the women's crew team worked out a compromise with our coach, Carol Bower. Bower now has minimal impact on the team? Our assistant coaches run most of our practices and race plans. Our manager is responsible for the logistical end of the program. We compromised with the Athletic Department because we knew this situation had to be temporary. The department will have to face the music eventually, although it is astute at holding us at bay. Ten out of our 20 rowers are seniors. When the freshmen move up to the varsity team next year, they will be willing to row since they do not know what we have been fighting for? My blood boils with the thought of the women's crew team undergoing the same heart-wrenching experience the swim teams endured. The reason we did not quit was not because we had faith Bower would become a better coach; her record over the past eight years reflects our statements. We compromised because we love the team too much to quit on a matter of principle. We saw where that got the swimmers. I want to thank Hut for recognizing the sad consequence of an ineffective and ineducable coach. If a coach is fired, his or her life will be turned upside down; my teammates were and still are highly sympathetic to this "tragedy." We deliberated for a long time about whether to seek help from the Athletic Department, if for no other reason than because we felt sorry for Bower. Our conclusion is this: One of the highest-paid women's crew coaches in the country should not retain her job if she is poor at it and she makes the lives of those who she is coaching miserable. We are committed and hard-working athletes. We want a coach who brings out the best in us. We want to bring out the best in Penn. Is that too much to ask? Marta Glazier College '97 Women's Crew Team Member Affirmative action ignorance To the Editor: Dave Crystal's uninformed, ignorant line on affirmative action ("Of quotas and chances," DP, 4/18/96) -- not unlike his earlier "columns" -- is indicative of his pathetic, passive approach to education and cultural understanding. Ultimately, though, his piece deliberately antagonizes and denigrates African Americans at Penn. In his absurd attempt to connect affirmative action to Nazi practices, Crystal employs the racial categories that are in many ways responsible for his infamy. The connection between affirmative action and Nazism is fallacious and facetious. Why do pundits of neo-conservative racism project their racial fantasies onto the programs and people that are (and have been historically) repressed and oppressed? Affirmative action was and is a meager attempt to address the specific concerns of people who are denied opportunity in America. Currently, the group of people most unusually affected by racism in America are those who are direct descendants of Africans appropriated by America. (You'll probably remember our folk as slaves.) Why doesn't Crystal find out who has benefitted the most from affirmative action? To know more about the significant differences between the histories of affirmative action and the policies of Nazi Germany, please visit the library. As far as the University of Texas Law School debacle, I hope Crystal knows Rolling Stone -- which he quoted -- is about as reliable a source of informed socio-political history as an Archie comic book. He has to read! The "Texas Index" is certainly not any more bias-free than an IQ test or the SAT. Therefore, the ruling in favor of the "plaintiffs" is merely another entry in a long list of reactionary judgements and/or policies that indicate the neo-conservative, sexist, racist temperament that is resweeping the nation. If Crystal doesn't think that he sounds like a person who subscribes to this movement, I ask him to think again. Penn's mostly white administration is not fully capable of selecting African American leaders. They are limited by the same tools that are responsible for denying African Americans equal opportunity. Furthermore, we are not brought here to educate you. Are you crazy?! We are here to get an education. Education is a dynamic, knowledge-seeking, proactive process. In my opinion, the burdens of integration and cultural education have been on African Americans for almost 100 years too long. If you are too intimidated to enter a setting predominated by African Americans, then I ask you to follow the example of those who you so ignorantly fear. We have and continue to matriculate here. We go to predominantly white classes everyday and I would wager that there is not a black person on this campus who doesn't interact with a white person every single day. How many of you Caucasoids can say the inverse is true? James Peterson English Doctoral Student Bookstore plan questioned To the Editor: I was shocked and dismayed to read about the plan for a new bookstore ("Penn signs deal for new bookstore," DP, 4/23/96). What the University is pushing as better resource for students is a blatant waste of money that could be put to far greater use elsewhere. What's wrong with the old bookstore? Didn't the University shell out a lot of cash in the last year to add "essentials" like My Favorite Muffin and a Clinique counter? So the new bookstore will be open until 11 p.m. and will be located at 36th and Walnut streets. What great use is this? It's farther away from where most students live and that means longer walks, a risk many are leery of late at night. Think about what could be done with the money it will cost to build a new bookstore and remodel the old one. Why not fix up the Curtis Organ, one of the great treasures of Penn in one of the prettiest buildings on campus (even though Irvine Auditorium is falling apart), or remodel one of the ugliest buildings, David Rittenhouse Laboratories, which everyone seems to have a class in regardless of major? The University could wire the rest of the Quad for ResNet, or maybe even fix up the unrenovated section. What about fixing the drafts in the High Rises? As a student who is about to enter a third year of living in these buildings, I can only guess how much money the University has lost because students run the heat on maximum all winter trying to offset the cold blowing in from around their closed windows. We don't need a new bookstore. There is a Borders downtown that is easy to get to on public transportation. The administration should consider fixing things that need repair or starting new projects, instead of replacing something that already adequately performs its task. Jessica Toney College '97
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