Drug Prevention Programs Ineffective

Dear Editor,

 In his Sept. 19 Guardian column, Nathan Miklos addresses federal anti-drug ads. Upon reading the article “Federal Anti-Drug Ads a $1.4 Billon Boondoggle,” it is easy to be concerned with the effectiveness of the federal anti-drug campaign. Many remember the “just say no” and D.A.R.E. programs, but most people never really saw them as ineffective. It makes sense from a financial standpoint in accordance with the actual reduction of drug use, but does that mean that these programs shouldn’t have existed? No. But with the last two decades deemed a “$1.4 billion boondoggle,” it seems almost so.

 There is still most definitely a drug abuse problem in this country, and more specifically within younger age groups. Basically, that is where the importance of new approaches within these campaigns comes into play. Time has shown the direct “drugs are bad, don’t do them” approach is more or less worthless and new, more creative methods must be used to call attention to the serious problem of drug abuse in our society. The need to reduce substance abuse and more specifically drug abuse within our society is an important social issue and social change is in order. To help aid this social change, there must be a media-wide anti-drug campaign. The federal government is just going to have to plan better, or at least create different campaigns and programs to help fight this issue. What do you think? How can or should the federal government go about these anti-drug ads in the future? What should they avoid and what should they be sure to include? Regardless, these ads have been ineffective and costly on a financial standpoint. Let’s just hope the next $1.4 billion is spent on campaigns and programs with more effective results.

— Nick Mendoza

Women’s Colleges Serve Valuable Purpose

Dear Editor,

As the husband of a Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (R-MWC) alumna and a once-frequent visitor to women’s colleges, I feel obliged to set the record straight and question Ms. Naraghi’s conclusions in “Casting a Wider Net” (Oct. 2) that going coed is about simple economics and her implication that women at a single-sex school are disadvantaged in the real world.

Women’s schools are neither “finishing schools” nor elitist Stepford-Wife cloisters, Hollywood’s stereotyped misconceptions a la “Mona Lisa Smile” notwithstanding. Women-only classrooms are best suited to the unique learning styles of women — often incompatible with male-oriented teaching ­­— without the distractions of male dominance issues or sexual tension. Women who are educated without men in the classroom are arguably better prepared to compete in the real world than female coed graduates who have been socialized to accept inequality in male-dominated classrooms run by majority-male faculties (women’s colleges are much more likely to have a near-50-50 male-female faculty ratio). A recent national survey of student engagement found that women who graduate from women’s colleges are on average more successful, happier and more satisfied with their education than their coed-graduate peers.

The decision to go coed is not just about economics, and the economics do not add up. R-MWC’s endowment eclipses its peers. It has experienced steadily growing enrollment (only in the late 1960s did it see higher enrollment numbers). Its main attraction to prospective students is its academic excellence, and while few enroll just because of its single-sex nature, nearly all who graduate credit the all-women status for the college’s academic strengths.

Unfortunately, the R-MWC trustees have for years ignored criticisms of the college’s poor admissions outreach efforts and the root causes of its poor retention (such as draconian “big sister” social policies, poor administration engagement with students, slashed budgets for on-campus social events and cuts to popular academic programs). The trustees’ decision was based upon a questionable “study” they commissioned, whose pro-coed conclusion erroneously assumed continued economic support by alumnae, continued low interest in single-sex colleges, unabated competition by other women’s colleges and static admissions and retention problems, and postulated that the academic excellence which has served as the school’s main selling point would be unaffected by a coed student body (which is directly at odds with all available evidence). The R-MWC controversy continues to date (despite little ongoing press coverage) with student blockades, protests, alumnae revolts and threatened litigation.

That the New York Times saw fit to treat the subject with inexcusable superficiality in its article cited in “Casting a Wider Net” demonstrates amply that “All the news that’s fit to print” is rarely fitted to print.

Most of today’s remaining women’s colleges would agree that “casting a wider net” to include men would in fact destroy the essential identity of their schools, obliterate their uniqueness, dry up their revenues, diffuse their academic rigor and give literal meaning to that most fervent chant of the recently disenfranchised Randolph-Macon Woman’s College students and alumnae, “Better Dead Than Coed.”

— Patrick McRee

Hollywood, California

Congressional Bill an Insult to Bill of Rights

Dear Editor,

The latest bill from our Republican-led Congress is no less than a criminal act which every moral American must recognize. But don’t just shake your heads. Act now! It’s every citizen’s responsibility in any democratic system of governance. Protect and fight for it, or lose it. Inform yourselves of the lies, deceit, dishonesty and betrayal of the American citizen which the Bush administration, and now Congress, is directly responsible for.

Congress has recently committed the shameful, odious, immoral and ominous act of passing the detainee bill, also called the “torture bill.” This was sold to the public as a compromise, but it’s actually even worse than the original version of the bill, with wording so broad that practically anyone, anywhere, can be declared an enemy combatant. That person no longer has the right of habeas corpus, a cornerstone of the legal system that dates back to the Magna Carta. That means that anyone opposing the Bush version of facist theocracy can be considered a combatant and be detained and tortured. It is now U.S. law.

Habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate must be brought to court so it can be determined if that person is lawfully imprisoned. A writ of habeas corpus can be filed in court by someone who objects to a prisoner’s detainment. The Magna Carta, the great charter, or the Libertatum Magna Carta, the great charter of freedom, led to constitutional law as we know it in virtually all proclaimed democratic countries. It is reflected in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Among other things, it requires that the rulers must follow the law.

The Bush administration has recently been shown to have violated 26 federal statutes. They have repeatedly defied international law and acted against the wishes of the United Nations. They have not acted in the interests of the American people. They have repeatedly violated the principles of democracy. They are a criminal regime that must be brought to justice. They are the worst governing body this country has ever experienced. This will be our history. Something must be done to bring the United States back from its present state of lawlessness. Every citizen must do his or her part, now, or it will be too late.

 — Milton Saier

Professor, UCSD