Letters to the editor

Reasonings for the lack of Republican faculty

To the editor:

A story will help explain the data presented in your Jan. 20 article on the preponderance of liberal Democrats on college faculties.

Following the death of Lee Atwater in 1991, William Bennett was named chairman of the Republican National Committee. As secretary of education under President Reagan, then as the "Drug Czar" under the first President Bush, Bennett had established himself as a prominent and feisty conservative intellectual, just the guy you'd want as RNC chair ripping into feminists, multiculturalists, environmentalists, and other unpatriotic, morally-weak liberals.

After a short tenure, however, Bennett gave up the job. Asked why at a news conference, Bennett said, "I never took a vow of poverty." The job paid $150,000 a year.

Republicans, I am suggesting, tend to think of "investment" in ways that preclude their entering the teaching profession. As to the threat posed by having so many left-liberals on college faculties, I offer a second opinion.

In the early 1950s, researchers reported that at Princeton University 90 percent of the professors identified themselves as liberal democrats and 90 percent of the entering freshmen identified themselves as conservative Republicans.

Four years later at graduation, the Princeton students were polled again, and 95 percent identified themselves as conservative Republicans.

Jeff Zorn

English professor

Alcohol policy encourages unsafe drinking

To the editor:

In response to the Jan. 20 article, "Violations fewer, with sanctions stricter," I would like to congratulate the university on its apparent progress towards its truly compassionate goals:

* To encourage community facilitators to not document borderline-dangerous alcohol violations if they do not feel that the offenders deserve the harsh minimum mandatory sanctions.

* To push students to decide between the safety of a friend and their own well-being: "I'm almost sure he won't die, and we really don't want to get in trouble, so we won't tell anyone!"

* To encourage binge drinking: "Quick, everyone do a bunch of shots before the CF does rounds again!"

* To give underclassmen living in the dorms incentive to do their partying out of red cups handed out by strangers at off-campus parties, rather than safely in their dorms with people they trust.

It is only with forward, intolerant thinking like this, that we will finally be able to eliminate the scourge of safe and intelligent drinking from our university.

Reid Conti

OMIS '06

IT article contained several inaccuracies

To the editor:

A Nov. 4, 2004, article, "Bandwidth blamed for bad connections," contained misleading and incorrect information pertaining to the Information Technology department.

There were too many errors to list all of them here, but I've addressed a few of them that I consider important for the students at Santa Clara to hear the correct information.

* Stanford provides Santa Clara's Internet access. At the time of the article, none of the university's Internet Service Providers was Stanford University.

We do not contract with or directly pay money to Stanford University in any way for our connection to the Internet.

* The equipment for the network upgrade alone would total at least $1 million, so it's not a strong possibility.

This "quote" was also inaccurate. We are in the process of upgrading our Internet connection to a total of 100 megabits (in comparison, your average DSL connection at home is around 1 megabit) and the cost of the new service is far less than $1 million, including equipment.

* IT cannot manage bandwidth used by file sharing programs, nor can we tell what files are being transferred. This statement is not only incorrect, it is also dangerously misleading.

The university has network equipment that monitors and adjusts file sharing traffic to ensure that it does not interrupt business and academic network activity, such as e-mail.

We also monitor our network for improper use, and advise the dean's office when potential problem activity is observed.

Other organizations (such as the MPAA and RIAA) can also identify who is downloading music or videos through the IP address associated with the computer used to download the copyrighted content.

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding the readers of The Santa Clara may have had about the article mentioned above.

Those who have questions about anything mentioned in the article or would like further information on what IT does, please e-mail me at rdykes@scu.edu.

Ross Dykes

Information Technology

* Editor's note: The Santa Clara disagrees that the article implied the university cannot manage bandwidth used by file sharing.