Letters to the Editor

Hostile environment

To the Editor:

If the University is genuinely serious about recruiting African-American students, it should first improve relations with current students.

I am a student at the College of General Studies. I love Penn. My father is Wharton alumnus and I was actually born at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

However, the treatment that I have received from University Police has been egregious at best.

Some elements here seek to create a hostile, inhospitable environment that is not conducive to one's intellectual or spiritual growth -- a great paradox because Penn is an esteemed institution who's very prestige is rooted in it's diversity.

Eber DeVine College of General Studies '03

Phantom funds

To the Editor:

Whether Jeff Millman ("Funding through the back door," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/25/02) intended to address the politics of divestment or abortion is unclear. Yet it must be pointed out that his argument hinged on misrepresented information.

Millman claimed that Penn for Choice "gets about $500 from the Penn Women's Center." We beg to differ.

The Women's Center graciously allows us the use of their space for our meetings, but we do not receive any funding from them or from the University. We did receive a grant, though not of $500, from an association supported by alumnae donations and not from tuition money.

That the abortion issue has caused a great deal of controversy both on campus and throughout the nation is an inescapable reality. However, to say that the University promotes a particular position in this debate by providing "back-channel, unorthodox funding" to Penn for Choice through the Penn Women's Center is simply and factually untrue.

Perhaps in time Millman will find examples of such infringement by Penn, but he has not found one in Penn for Choice.

Heather Goldner College '03

Rachel Perloff College '02

Leah Tulin College '03

The writers are the chairwomen of Penn for Choice.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.