Letter to the Editor: Fighting Solomon

To the Editor:

I would have hoped that calling people "un-American" had gone out of style with Joseph McCarthy. I guess I was wrong.

Even in a small guest column, ("The Solomon Bandwagon," DP, 9/28/05) Joseph Sesin could have managed to squeeze in a few facts between all the rhetoric. Instead, had he taken out all the direct references to the Solomon Amendment, I don't think I would have been able to guess what he was actually talking about.

The University is arguing against federal funding being contingent upon a discriminatory practice (military recruiters being, by policy, anti-gay). Yet Sesin doesn't mention this until the final paragraph of his rant, instead suggesting that the University is opposed to military recruiting because of some imagined anti-military agenda.

The University, like the U.S. military, tries to protect all speech, even that which it disagrees with. That the University allows groups that Sesin finds offensive to exist on campus does not mean the University is itself pushing a political agenda.

The merits of the suit will be judged in court, but there is nothing anti-military, or un-American, about using the courts to fight institutionalized discrimination.

Dan Margolis

Engineering '06

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