To the Editor:I always assumed that an opinion piece was meant to shed some light on a subject people wanted to know about, or that few people were aware of. I learned that I was wrong in the last issue of the Justice. Apparently, opinion pieces are used to not only attack groups that you know nothing about, but to attack yourself in an effort to be funny.

By now I can assume that many of you avid Justice readers know what I am talking about. Herschel Simon Hartz writes an opinion piece just about every week that pertains to something obscure on campus. He constantly makes fun of himself, as well as his mother in every one. I'm not here to attack him personally, but to address the last installment of Hartz's rants.

In his last piece, Hartz commented on the attractiveness of the freshman class (which I will not fight) and, among other things, the effectiveness of Orientation Leaders on campus,. Hartz mentioned that if he were to be an OL, he would have told the incoming freshman (sic) that "the people are fake, the frats are fake...and you won't like it here, I'm not speaking out of bitterness, I'm just telling the truth."

As Orientation Leaders, we are required to show the new "Brandesians" a good time, let them know how everything around campus works, and be an unconditional friend. Many people coming into a new school are nervous and by being friendly, as Hartz negatively describes, "overly peppy," we try to make the new students more comfortable here.

Hartz makes OLs out to be students with too much time on their hands who try to go out of their way to make the new students uncomfortable when in reality, we strive for the opposite. For someone with no knowledge of the subject, Hartz seems to be quite opinionated. This is why I don't write about cars, bartending or German because I don't know anything about those subjects.

As Matt Brown wrote in the article next to Hartz's in the same issue, "Being an OL is a labor of love." We volunteer our services because we love this school and everything about it, for the same reason people join the Student Union, Student Events, WBRS, The Justice, or any other club!

I didn't want this piece to be entirely defensive because the article personally hurt me as an OL and a Brandeis student, in actuality I'm still trying to figure out why Hartz wrote the article in the first place. If he wanted to let the entire freshman class know what Brandeis is "really like" I guess it did a good job, from Hartz's perspective. In retrospect, even though I know the piece offended many people, it was printed because everyone has a voice and regardless of what they say, good or bad, it should be printed. This may be the case, but I want to know why Hartz wrote it in the first place.

Although it was an opinion piece, Hartz placed blatantly false information in his article, not only about Orientation Leaders, but about people and fraternities at this school as well. I say let people read each others' opinions to help create their own, but don't give an opinion if you have no idea what you are talking about, that's just wrong.

-David Gorman '07