Letter to the Editor: Proper disclosure

To the Editor:

After reading Michael Benz's letter ("Too Much Information," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 1/24/05), I feel compelled to respond. Benz's assertion that "if the alleged perpetrator had been an African American, and had race been stated in the first line of the e-mail, this report would have run a serious risk of provoking accusations of racism" tells me that he clearly misunderstood the contention that various members of the Penn community have had with past treatment of crime reports on campus.

Students were upset last year because The Daily Pennsylvanian ran an article about an alleged attack in one of the high rises that included a picture of the student being charged well before the case had gone to trial. Yes, the student was black, but the issue at hand was the publication of his photograph.

Every crime reported in The Daily Pennsylvanian or by Penn's Department of Safety lists the race and gender of the alleged suspect. The e-mail sent to students this weekend was no exception. The e-mail was not a racially based attack on Penn's white male population. It explained what happened and provided the available physical description of the perpetrator -- and that is standard procedure.

Katie Kuhl, College '06

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