Letters to the Editor

Not wary of new president

To the Editor:

Your editorial extending a despicable "welcome" to our new president ("A wary welcome for Dr. Gutmann," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 01/23/04) was outrageous. You chide the selection of Amy Gutmann because of "her lack of significant business experience." Do you think the University of Pennsylvania is a corporation? A widget factory dedicated solely to profit?

This is a university. Let this be clear: a university is an institution of higher education dedicated to the pursuit and dissemination of truth.

Let fiscal concerns remain the business of the University Board of Trustees and their technocrats. I am thrilled that a highly accomplished academic with impeccable intellectual integrity is coming to lead us as president.

Some of us, Dr. Gutmann, are not "wary" in our welcome. We are relieved.

Tristan Mabry

GAS '10 O'Connor not conservative

To the Editor:

In Michelle Dubert's column ("Taking on the myth of the conservative Supreme Court," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 01/26/04), she is mistaken about one large myth: that Sandra Day O'Connor is a conservative.

I think there is not one right-minded liberal out there, or conservative for that matter, who would call her a conservative. O'Connor has always been known as a swing vote, as her record has shown in disparate cases like Bush v. Gore and Grutter v. Bollinger.

Even in light of the fact that recent cases brought before the Supreme Court have been ruled in favor of the left, it should not be mistaken that if there was one more appointee on the bench who would be conservative, the activist approach to these cases would have fallen short to the conservative majority, regardless of O'Connor's swing vote. That is the principal basis of the left's qualm about the Court and every court below it being filled with conservatives.

However, it is not conservative views that liberals fear. It is the basis for the rulings that such conservative nominees would apply to the law.

One such classic example recently was William Pryor, who said himself that he would use his religious beliefs when making his judgment on cases. Thus, when Dubert says that O'Connor "rule[s] contrary to [her] mainstream," is it wrong to not take public opinion or personal beliefs into account when handing down a judgment?

The fact remains that with a president who takes time out of his busy schedule, while on the road in St. Louis nonetheless, to call up an anti-abortion rally in Washington and say that the protesters' fight was not over in Washington, but that they should continue their fight in their local towns sounds pretty fanatical to me. I don't know about you, but if Bush wants to declare a jihad on abortion, then what's stopping him and his Republican majorities from appointing people who will help him do that on a federal level?

Dean Panayides

College '07

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