LAWSUIT AGAINST HARPER'S IS A WASTEIn response to your article "University criticizes Harper's article" (News, Nov. 3): Brandeis administrators should stop trying to prevent criticism of this type.

The fiasco around the Rose Art Museum speaks for itself: Poor planning and an erosion of integrity toward the arts.

Having received a Ph.D. in History in 1990 from this university-from an outstanding department with superb faculty-the latest developments at Brandeis are a great disappointment to me. And Harper's-to which I subscribe-is one of America's finest critical popular magazines, far more truthful than most of U.S. media, print or otherwise. A defamation lawsuit?! What a terrible waste of money and time. I'll stand by Harper's on that one.

-David Palmer Ph.D. '90

The writer is a senior lecturer in American Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.



REQUEST LEGAL ADVICE BEFORE SUING

Regarding your article "University criticizes Harper's article" (News, Nov. 3): Are statements of opinions that are based on factual errors or that are insulting actionable as defamation in any jurisidiction where Harper's is distributed? I doubt it. The University has been in court enough lately over the Rose Art Museum controversy.

As a lawyer as well as an alumnus, I hope the President gets sound legal advice before pursuing a libel case on the University's dime.

-Gary Lander '67



BEHA'S ARTICLE IS POOR JOURNALISM

In response to your article "University criticizes Harper's article" (News, Nov. 3): As a Harper's subscriber, veteran journalist and long-ago Brandeis graduate, I was surprised and put off by Beha's article-not so much because it was highly critical of Brandeis but because it offers virtually no evidence to support its one-sided point of view.

Beha may have a few points to make, but his piece is lazily prepared, too polemical and ultimately unconvincing to anyone who reads it closely. It simply doesn't pass muster as a reporting job.

There is little evidence that he actually interviewed anyone at Brandeis or did any investigative reporting. Or that he wanted to do any. He provides no quotes from the administration-or anyone else. Not even any off-the-record quotes, however misleading, to convince the reader, except one blind comment from a an unnamed "committee" involved in the Rose controversy.

If Beha had really wanted to get the story, he would have interviewed several well-informed Brandeis sources and provided quotes from at least a few of them or at least quoted from one or two on 'deep background.'

Beha damages his credibility further by implying that some students might actually have decided to attend Brandeis-despite its high tuition-because of the presence of the Rose Art Museum. Really? He provides no evidence for this absurd contention. Who would choose Brandeis over University of Massachusetts, Amherst, simply because of the art museum? He offers no anecdotal or survey data to support that notion.

Beha even implies that Brandeis' tuition is significantly higher than that of other private institutions (he compares Brandeis with publicly funded UMass, not with comparable private universities)-so his comparison in that respect is utterly worthless.

Rather than threaten a lawsuit against Beha, however, I believe the Brandeis administration should focus its rebuttals on the substance of the article.

If, as President Reinharz has asserted, Brandeis has not been severely damaged by the Madoff debacle, then the administration might want to provide evidence that it is still in good health. Address the issues. Don't expect any apologies from the author, however. Remember that Beha would never have written this article in the first place if he had intended to make it a balanced one. Otherwise, he would not have overlooked the first rules of objective journalism in putting it together.

-Alan Field

The writer is an associate editor at the Journal of Commerce.



POOR PICKS FOR SEARCH COMMITTEE

Regarding your article "Search committee appointed" (News, Nov. 3): Pray tell, how does buying a building with your name on it qualify you to make decisions for an entire university community that you're not even a part of?

Malcolm Sherman seems to think that the expertise that comes from donating large piles of money far outweighs anything brought to the table by students or staff-that is, the people who live and work here, and the people who will be most affected by the selection of a new president.

This leadership clearly hopes to model Brandeis on corporate structures and practices rather than on a community of learning, something I don't think Louis Brandeis would have appreciated.

-Jon Sussman '11



BUILDING WOULD DO LITTLE FOR THE JEWS

In response to your op-ed "Scrap plans for chapel; erect a Hillel building" (Forum, Nov. 3): The writer's intentions are good, but his proposition would simply prove inconsequential.

Putting a whole group of people in the same building will not magically solve all of the problems with our campus' Jewish community. The community here at Brandeis is fragmented because each denominational group (Brandeis Orthodox Organization, Brandeis University Conservative Organization, Brandeis Reform Chavurah and Brandeis Reconstructionist Organization) has its own social activities.

What really needs to be done is more joint programming among the various demoninations, so that we (that's right-I'm including myself in this statement) can get to know each other on a more personal level. Two people merely walking in the same direction to and from services or Shabbat dinner means absolutely nothing.

-Daniel Kasdan '13



GOLDSTONE AND GOLD FORUM WAS FAIR

In response to your op-ed "Accord speaker his own platform"?(Forum, Nov. 3): Several points are unclear in this article.

First, the opinion writer refers to Thursday's forum as a "debate." A debate is an argument in which some arbiter determines a winner and a loser. A famous example might be the debates in which Douglas rhetorically defeated Lincoln. As much as I would like to demonstrate to the world that not everyone has gone off the deep end, I highly doubt the audience will be asked to select a winner at the end of Thursday's forum.

Second, on what grounds does the opinion holder conclude that Dore Gold is "far to the right of the Israeli political spectrum?" It's impossible to be to the side of a spectrum; no matter where one is in relation to others, one is still on the spectrum.

Also, the tactic of hawkifying or extremifying is a tactic we see from terrorism apologists everywhere. I ask again: what do you know about Gold that convinces you he is several standard deviations from the mean of Israeli political thought?

Third, the assertion that "the Brandeis administration will not let a left-wing activist stand on his or her own" is patently ridiculous. If I recall correctly, we hosted American terrorist-gone-academe Bill Ayers last spring; certainly he was the loudest name, but Barney Frank and Carl Levin have spoken here, too. If anyone reading this believes left-wing speakers are shunned, they need to share a bit with the rest of us.

Finally, this forum was balanced. On one side is the man who accepted the flawed mandate of the mission, failed to screen other panelists for prior prejudice and seriously entertained the testimonies of "civilians" living in an area that had recently experienced internal civil war, an area controlled by a vicious, uncompromising group dedicated to the destruction of any Jewish establishments between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

On the other side is a man standing up against the biases inherent in this mission and the prejudices in other U.N. work, a senior official in a government that saw the Mission's real colors from the outset, a man from a nation that has kept coming back to negotiate itself into oblivion, from Israel.

-Gideon Klionsky '11