Your Turn Letters to the Editor

VCU students care about freedom, not days off

I had the displeasure of reading Monday’s letter to the editor written by a very embittered Sara Duke. Not only is her letter impertinent to those who genuinely care about honoring America, but her “facts” are wrong.

Earlier this month, several students collected well over 400 petition signatures in favor of VCU recognizing World Freedom Day and Veterans Day. World Freedom Day commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall, while Veterans Day serves to honor America’s war veterans. Currently, VCU does not recognize either of these important days.

Contrary to Duke’s assertion, nowhere in the petitions signed by VCU students does it say that classes would be cancelled on these recognized days. VCU students care about preserving our essential freedoms and liberty and honoring our veterans, not days off.

On Nov. 20, I had the pleasure of introducing the VCU Freedom Act to my colleagues in the SGA Senate. This bill is sponsored by the student body via the form of the aforementioned petition and calls upon the university to recognize World Freedom Day and Veterans Day by placing them on the University’s calendar and urges the student body to observe these days with appropriate activities and events. This bill was well received as has been forwarded to a committee for further discussion.

Finally, is wanting our troops to come home tomorrow really the same thing as supporting them? It doesn’t seem that way to me; by saying she wants the troops away from the battlefield is akin to saying she doesn’t trust them to fight and win this “war on terror.”

Say what you want to about the U.S. being in Iraq, but these men and women in uniform are fighting a very difficult war against an innovative enemy and because of it, our troops deserve our unconditional support, period. It would be foolish to leave Iraq tomorrow, and I don’t think that intentionally dividing ourselves along ideological lines for personal gain is going to solve anything either.

– Steven C. Latimer
Senator, Monroe Park Campus SGA

Limit Facebook use on campus

I just want to complain about the people in the library who use the library PCs to go on Facebook and check MySpace. Those computers are for everyone! If it’s a slow time, then that’s fine, but if you are just going hop on a library computer just to do basic Internet free time, you are doing a disservice to the students at VCU who either need to print information or need access to working computers.

– Arie Ziller