Newspaper acted inappropriatelyIn response to your article "Pachanga night yields arrests, medical crises" (News, Oct. 26):

It is completely inappropriate for a student publication to be doing this to other students. The Justice is a paper with integrity, not a gossip magazine.

-Sara Miller '11



Officers abused power

In response to your article "Pachanga night yields arrests, medical crises" (News, Oct. 26):

Students called the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps so that their friend could get taken to the hospital because they feared for his life. The fact that he was never even given a blood alchol test or seen by professional medical staff is a gross neglect of the student's well being. The whole situation would have read a lot different had he died due to alcohol poisoning in jail.

The police arresting the student and throwing him into jail is an abuse of their power. He should have been seen by the EMTs who were on their way. How dare they tell an EMT to cancel medical help en route. I am outraged that the BEMCo EMT did so.

The actions of the police could have very well killed the intoxicated student. Instead the police chose to throw him into a cell.

The beginning of the article states, "The Department of Public Safety responded to several incidents of disruptive student behavior that resulted in two student arrests and the hospitalization of multiple intoxicated students on the night of last Saturday's Pachanga dance, Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan said in an interview with the Justice."

Why was this drunk individual never taken to the hospital even though there were many other hospitalizations on the very same night? The officers who arrested him did receive medical treatment. This would be repugnant in the eyes of Louis Brandeis.

Also, the students who were arrested that night are being treated as guilty individuals by the University. They have been prohibited from being on campus, prohibited from attending their classes and forced to live elsewhere (instead of their on-campus dorms) while the University decides whether or not it will pursue judicial proceedings against them.

Why has the University removed them from campus and not allowed them to go to the classes they pay so much for in the interim? This is not treating them as innocent until proven guilty, which is the fundamental basis for our judicial system.

-Elizabeth Agnew

Austin, Texas



Pachanga should be canceled

In response to your article "Pachanga event is inconsistent with our character" (Forum, Oct. 26):

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Cooper. It is an embarrassment to the University that an event which consistently yields multiple arrests and hospital runs should be permitted to take place each semester. We came to Brandeis to receive a top-notch education, not to make fools of ourselves. Mr. Cooper has made a point in saying that he does not advocate canceling Pachanga. But quite frankly, that is exactly what should be done.

In the current economic climate, the International Club could make better use of its money. We are a liberal arts university, not a red-light district. Students here should be ashamed of themselves.

-Daniel Kasdan '13



Substantiate cage-free arguments

In response to your article "Don't hastily support cage-free initiative" (Forum, Oct. 26):

I respect and appreciate those who take the time to consider the cage-free egg proposal rather than blindly following a cause that appears to be simply "better" and "more humane."

However, I think it is important that the arguments made either for or against the proposal are based on sound logic as well as a realistic understanding of how we can make decisions that reflect the kind of community we want to be.

First, the issue of the poll. Like any campus election or survey, the Student Union poll was open to the entire student body. That only 28 percent of students chose to respond (which was as easy as following the link sent to their inboxes or advertised on Facebook) is an issue of individual choice; it does not invalidate the poll itself.

Similarly, turnouts to local elections in our hometowns (which tend to be embarrassingly low) or even to presidential elections (remember Clinton in 1996?) do not lead us to question the legitimacy of the election itself. We accept the results, knowing they could've looked a bit different, and can only do our best to encourage greater voter turnout the next time around.

In terms of cost, food at Brandeis is indeed expensive. Unfortunately, many of the healthiest choices are also the priciest-the result of a flawed national agricultural system. While a switch to cage-free eggs would raise the cost of meal plans by $5, as the column states, a greater portion of each person's meal plan would be devoted to eggs. Point taken.

But let's be honest: how many extra bags of chips does that mean we can no longer shove onto a meal? How many spare points at the end of the semester does that mean we've lost?

A second Student Union poll shows that over two-thirds of students would pay $20 more for their meal plans each semester. Clearly, students are willing to make the financial commitment to adopt a cage-free policy.

Finally, I agree that "cage-free" is not to be equated with "humane." Indeed, many of the labels we put on our food are insufficient in truly qualifying the morality and sustainability of a product and the process by which it came to be, but to reject change because it falls short of perfection disqualifies change from the start.

The financial burden of buying the most ethically raised meat, dairy and eggs, is tremendous compared to the cost of simply adopting a cage-free policy. Not to mention expanding fresh food options, buying locally grown produce and other local, organic ingredients. It's too much to do at once.

Going cage-free is one of many small steps that Brandeis can take toward implementing a more sustainable food system in the longrun. It's a step that, as a campus, makes a difference without placing too much of a burden on any single group or individual.

-Sarit Luban '11



Horowitz event was disappointing

In response to your article "Horowitz spoke about liberal biases" (News, Oct. 26):

I am disappointed that the Justice nor the did not report on my favorite point of David Horowitz's speech last week.

Rankled that he did not receive anywhere near the attention or acclaim that some liberal speakers, Horowitz proclaimed that if Brandeis were seriously interested in divergent viewpoints, President Reinharz himself should have offered to come introduce him.

This, in a nutshell, encapsulates his point: even though his polemics are neither scholarly nor well-reasoned, "academic freedom" is an affirmative action program for pseudo-conservative claptrap. Which is to say, if real scholars (some of whom happen to be liberal) get a cookie, he wants one too. David Horowitz believes that there is a double standard on college campuses, but it is not between liberals and conservatives: it is between scholars and serious thinkers on the one hand and demagogues on the other.

That someone like Ellen Schrecker produces scholarly work based on evidence and logical analysis and is accordingly given serious interest is only useful to him so long as it presents the opportunity to drum up self-pity without a shred of substance.

For someone who claims that "tenured radicals" are destroying the university, David Horowitz spends precious little time presenting counter-claims or objections. Indeed, his book denouncing America's "most dangerous professors" is an impressively slap-dash collection of irrelevant anecdotes, misdirection and flat-out falsehoods. I found it illuminating that, after claiming that the hard sciences are a bastion of truth, he went on to promote the long-discredited idea that race has any basis in biology.

For all his bluster, Horowitz's agenda is surprisingly simple. As he stated in his lecture, the 1950s-when women, racial minorities, and Jews were consistently excluded from higher education as students, faculty, and part of the curriculum-were a "golden age of the university."

Thankfully, the gates of academic legitimacy have long since closed on these bigoted and ignorant ideas. Perhaps, someday, the far-right donors who pay him to assault intellectual freedom will, too.

-Jonathan Sussman '11