Important events at UCSD overlooked
Dear Editor,
We are writing to express our dissatisfaction with the Guardian’s lack of coverage of Thurgood Marshall Week.
One newsworthy event your newspaper failed to cover was Cheryl Brown Henderson speaking to hundreds of UCSD students about educational inequality, her role in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education and her personal interactions with the late Thurgood Marshall. Another event was the fourth annual Marshallpalooza, a free carnival and concert that the Guardian also overlooked.
Thurgood Marshall Week’s purpose is not only to celebrate the essence of our college but also to build community and school pride. The student satisfaction report states that there is a need for traditions on this campus, yet the Guardian has chosen to ignore the efforts of many student leaders who are trying to establish these traditions.
Furthermore, we do not understand your obsession with the administration. We are sure that students picking up the Nov. 21 issue of the Guardian were much more interested in reading about a free concert than being given an update on the status of Chancellor Fox’s future house. Certainly a picture of a Ferris wheel full of UCSD students or a close-up of one particular student getting bucked off a mechanical bull is more eye-catching than acting Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Gary Ratcliff sitting behind his desk.
Articles about events that have already happened persuade students to attend similar events in the future. The Guardian should also utilize the Hiatus section to preview upcoming festivals’ musical acts. Your newspaper’s lack of coverage of actual UCSD events is absurd and we urge you to reconsider the Guardian’s journalistic priorities.
— Geoff Peppler
Chair, Marshallpalooza Committee
— Denis Shmidt
Chair, Thurgood Marshall College Council
York videos aren’t intended to arouse
Dear Editor,
Monday night at York Hall, Porn Nation speaker Michael Leahy spoke to UCSD students of his porn addiction, marital infidelity and eventual recovery from these personal afflictions. He introduced his subject, appropriately, by defining pornography. He said, borrowing from Webster’s Dictionary, that pornography is material “intended to cause sexual excitement.”
As Steve York and anyone familiar with his productions will attest, York’s material is not “intended to cause sexual excitement.” Rather, it is intended specifically as an exercise of what York believes to be his First-Amendment rights to free expression. York has stated publicly that he hasn’t yet met someone turned on by his videos; he’s even gone so far as to say anyone who finds his material arousing probably has some kind of disorder.
We may disagree about what Steve York’s videos are, but according to Michael Leahy and Webster’s Dictionary, one thing they are not is pornography.
— Dana Dahlstrom
Vice president internal,
Graduate Student Association
