Lawsuit article misleading

Your headline in the article regarding a suit brought against the University (“Facts emerge in AD lawsuit,” Jan. 17) is both inaccurate and misleading. The article presents allegations made in the lawsuit. These allegations are not “facts,” but rather claims made in a legal complaint by the plaintiff. The University will vigorously defend itself against these claims and, should the suit go to trial, a jury will determine the facts.

In a related matter, the article asserts that the suit has had an impact on the search for a new athletic director. In particular, Senior Associate Athletic Director Debra Gore-Mann is singled out. These assertions are made without any substantiation. Although it would be inappropriate to publicly discuss a search for any position, the University was aware of the allegations made in this suit before former Athletic Director Ted Leland retired and Gore-Mann subsequently became a potential candidate for that position. The extensive media coverage that merely recites, sometimes incorrectly, those allegations has not had an impact on the potential candidacy of Gore-Mann.

Patrick H. Dunkley

Senior University Counsel

Suit unjustified

I love The Daily. I read it from time to time on break, and Tuesday’s was by far the best I’ve read in a long time. The two front page stories I read were: “Freshmen Defrauded and Upset,” and “World’s Most Troublesome Employee Fired — Files Suit for Emotional Distress.” I mean, honestly, what freshman doesn’t get defrauded at least once? It’s a valuable part of the university learning experience. And I’m not even going to start with my opinions of the woman who claims that she stayed in a work environment that made her miserable, was troubling to her conscience and eventually will cause her untimely demise. That’s like one of the strippers at New Century Theater suing her management for making her feel like a sex object once she’s 40 and has been working there for 19 years. Keep it coming.

Justin Litchfield

Graduate student, Chemistry

“Brokeback” seen widely

In yesterday’s article “LGBT-CRC welcomes ‘Brokeback,’” Mehul Trivedi seemed to support gay cowboys breaking some backs while getting their ‘Mount on but also claimed that, “In my hometown of Dallas, it’s really difficult to find theaters willing to show the movie.” Now I sometimes indulge in Dallas-hating, but I have to point out he’s flat out wrong. When I saw “Brokeback” in Dallas over winter break, it was showing on two screens at the theater, and about three-quarters of the packed seats were filled with straight couples. In fact, it is only playing on one more screen in San Francisco than in Dallas, and there are two more theaters showing “Brokeback” within 20 miles of my house in Dallas than there are within 20 miles of Stanford.

Let’s not let snobbery obscure one of the best facts about “Brokeback” — it’s doing quite well in unexpected markets like Kansas City, Fort Worth and even Utah (seven theaters are playing it in the Salt Lake City area).

That 40-pounding, Bush-voting, 10-gallon-hat-wearing SMU frat

boy may like to watch movies that go boom, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s too closed-minded to let his girlfriend (or gay friend) drag him to “Brokeback.”

Bo Barfield

Co-term student, Symbolic Systems and Humanities

More heart transplants needed

Gaea Shaw was very lucky to get a heart transplant (“Heart transplant recipient raises awareness,” Jan. 19). More than half of the people who need an organ transplant in the United States will die before they get one. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans donate only about half of the organs that could save lives and relieve suffering. They bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. More than 6,000 of their neighbors die every year as a result.

There is a simple solution to the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.

Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. About 60 percent of the organs transplanted in the United States go to people who haven’t agreed to donate their own organs when they die. People who aren’t prepared to share the gift of life shouldn’t be eligible for transplants as long as there is a shortage of organs.

David J. Undis

Nashville, Tenn.

lifesharers.org

Was it actually plagiarism?

The Stanford Daily has a responsibility to report facts, rather than partisan claims, in its lead news articles. A Jan. 18 article, “Still Dodgy?” fails notably when it unthinkingly repeats the speech organizers’ plagiarism allegation.

By definition, plagiarism is the misrepresentation “as one’s own” of another’s work. Yet even Ibrahim Al-Marashi has conceded that the dossier did not claim to be original and stated up front that it drew upon a number of sources, both intelligence and otherwise. Clearly, this is not plagiarism, and given that the dossier was for internal use only, it could be considered fair use.

Agenda-driven organizations such as the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East may wish to dramatize the issue, but that is not the role of The Daily; such a journalistic faux pas should be both acknowledged and corrected.

Additionally it should be noted that the official Lord Butler inquiry found no evidence of either deliberate distortion or culpable negligence in the Iraq report.

Michael Bax

Graduate student, Electrical Engineering

What deal?

In the debate over Stanford reneging on its commitment to provide decent trails in exchange for its massive development, both sides used the argument that a “deal is a deal.”

The deal that the Stanford boosters quote and which Santa Clara Board of Supervisors most regrettably endorsed shortly before Christmas (“University, county agree on trails”, Jan. 18), has the following brief history:

It came out of a crucial meeting in December 2002, at which the supervisors caved in to the bully-boys from Stanford. At that meeting the Board voted to remove from further study the two trails recommended by their County Parks and Recreation staff.

The process leading to the Board’s vote started with intimidation described by the Palo Alto Weekly (Sept. 18, 2002) as a “full-court press” by Stanford management. That was followed by a barrage of litigation threats from Stanford’s lawyers.

Because there was minimal notice related to that vote, it took place with no debate in an eerily deserted auditorium.

However, there is a deal that should have been honored; the deal that Stanford made at the beginning of the process: to provide good, safe and environmentally sound connectivity to the Arastradero Preserve. It may well have been in some part a good-faith agreement; good faith with the community that has once again been broken both by Stanford and the supervisors. As The Palo Alto Weekly noted last week: “That’s how Stanford wins — with lawyers, money and a will to outlast its critics.”

However, giving the finger to the community that surrounds it can be very costly to a university over the long term, and a day may come when Stanford comes to regret the arrogance of its current management.

Walter Sedriks

Palo Alto