Chomsky event walkout was unfair
To the Editor:
Like many of you, I expected some sort of fracas at the Noam Chomsky speech. However, the staged and coordinated walkout by many students seemed rather tepid compared to the histrionics at the Gold-Goldstone event last year.
At first, I considered the walkout as laughably ineffectual: Chomsky didn't seem to care, and many people who were sitting on the floor were able to take the seats of these impetuous dissidents. Moreover, the joke seemed to be on the protesters, who had waited for over an hour to get seats for an event they would ultimately walk out on.
However, this got me thinking. Many students wanted to see Chomsky speak, yet the Sherman Function Hall reached maximum capacity, disallowing many students from attending the event. My Facebook wall was besieged by a cavalcade of disgruntled friends bemoaning their inability to hear Chomsky. By walking out, the protesters deprived approximately 50 neutral students of the right to see the speech, and, in my opinion, this was the most egregious effect of the protest.
-Scott Evans '12Hosting Chomsky is inappropriate
In response to your article "Chomsky to speak during Israeli Occupation Awareness Week" (News, Nov. 9):
As an alum and as clergy, I find this event to both appalling and divisive. We need to work toward peace among our own community and those in the Middle East. Additionally, it was problematic to promote this event mere days after we commemorated the 10th anniversary of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. We need to foster a legacy of dialogue not inbred hate and distrust.
-Rabbi Glenn Ettman '99

Choose majors based on interest
In response to your article "Advertise the advantages of math, science courses of study" (Forum, Nov. 9):
This article opposes the fundamentals of a liberal arts education. First of all, I do not believe there is such thing as a "lucrative major" as a college undergraduate. You are propagating a common misconception that certain majors are directly connected to specific careers with high salaries and that others are not. This is simply false. If you are a math or science major and expect your course of study to automatically lead you to a lucrative career, then you have a thing or two to learn about your college education.
Your undergraduate education is just that--your education, not training for a job. By fulfilling any major, you learn to think, to write, to argue, to research, to interact with people; to generally become a more informed, reasoned and intelligent person. It is not Brandeis' purpose to train you for the career you will have in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years! The sciences are wonderful subjects to major in. So are the humanities, arts and social sciences. I am not trying to put down math and science majors, but I want to convey that your one-sided view in this article discredits lots of other amazing fields of study.
The fact that you correlate Art History directly to unemployment and "financial insecurity" is disappointing and misinformed. You state briefly that "humanities majors are still crucial," but do not explain: why this is, nor to whom or what they are crucial to. Frankly, the steps you choose to take with your major are what make you successful, not the major itself. You ask, "Should American colleges put more emphasis on future salaries when helping their students choose majors?" No, they should not. All students have the power to decide what compels them to learn, and choosing a major is not the time to make students focus on their salaries later in life. We have very few opportunities to dedicate all of our time to whatever topic we choose. No one should try to remove the undergraduate college experience from that short list.
-Jonna Cottrell '13

Focus on content, not e-mail itself
In response to your article "Reinharz's Pachanga e-mail was inappropriate" (Forum, Nov. 2):
While this article highlights some interesting concerns, I think the space would be better served by discussing the actual content of the e-mail, not merely the fact that it was written. I urge the Forum section to take a closer look at the fact that the e-mail discusses this past Pachanga as an anomaly when there was, in fact, a similar situation in fall 2009.
-Joanna Schorr '10
The writer is a former editor in chief of the Justice.