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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Article Excerpt
Byline: The Register-Guard

Cartoons warrant expulsion

University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer may or may not be a disgrace and a coward. But he is definitely ineffectual.

What was printed in The Insurgent should be categorized as what it was: a hate crime. The students responsible should be expelled, if not criminally charged.

Frohnmayer's impotent response demonstrates that the UO is not committed to diversity nor to providing a welcoming, safe atmosphere for all students, faculty and staff. It puts the lie to the university's efforts to draw up a long-range diversity plan.

Frohnmayer has created an Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity consisting of a vice provost and two assistant vice provosts plus support staff, at a cost of close to half a million dollars annually. Apparently it's just a token effort to show the university's commitment to political correctness for its own sake.

Charles Martinez, the vice provost for institutional equity and diversity, has shown absolutely no leadership. He remains mute; he has neither supported or denounced Frohnmayer's statement nor come out with a statement of his own.

The university has spent many person-years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to draft a long-range diversity plan that basically says "respect each other." How can the university move forward toward true diversity when the president and his own vice provost pay the concept only lip service? How can the university go before the Legislature and ask for more money when it exhibits such wanton waste?

PETER...