Letters to the Editor | May 8, 2024

I’ve watched the protests roiling Columbia University with the perspective of a person who was in Hamilton Hall during the campus demonstrations in 1968 — a Barnard “Soul Sister” — and as someone who was very much aware of Harlem’s close involvement with us during the political and cultural demonstrations there and on numerous campuses across the country that year.

As the journalist Juan González said recently, Black students had a leading role in connecting Columbia’s actions and American interests at the time, particularly with regard to international, national, and New York politics.

As others have very well explained, we all wanted to join with diverse groups and individuals in making our views heard and affecting change toward a more free, just, and democratic society. And our tactics and methods were aimed toward the best interests of freedom-loving people here and abroad.

We had a more nuanced discussion, and we took on struggles with allies and organizations — Black, Latino, left-leaning, and so-called peacenik students — who shared our values.

If there are lessons to be taken from 1968, they don’t involve a long rehashing of conflicts with the university trustees, student factions, governmental authorities, and the police in their flying wedge formation.

For me, the takeaways from that time are both broader and more personal: the need to directly address questions students, professors, and the communities see as important — a reframing at the intersection of words and actions with more focus on debates and possible solutions. Going forward, it must be about how people talk to one another, identifying the most effective catalysts for actual debates, and having a perspective that is wider than the screen on an iPhone or a tablet.

Christine Clark-Evans, associate professor emerita, Penn State University, University Park, Pa.

In the school board battle over Joyce Wilkerson’s appointment by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, the argument that Philadelphia students have not shown enough progress during Wilkerson’s tenure boils down to inadequate funding for majority Black and brown public schools throughout Pennsylvania. Until our state legislators pass a law that will add $5.4 billion to the basic education budget over the next seven years to meet adequacy, as per the recommendation of the Basic Education Funding Commission, and put that money through a fair funding formula to assure racial equity, poor majority Black and brown schools across the state will continue to underperform. Wilkerson’s many volunteer hours over many years should be applauded. Overpaying charter operators to the tune of $475,000 should be avoided at all costs.

Beth Logue, POWER Statewide Education Justice Team, Philadelphia, elizabeth.logue44@gmail.com

It is difficult to write an honest column when the writer uses a less-than-honest premise. In his May 6 column, Kyle Sammin initially makes an accurate point that both the student protesters and the U.S. Capitol attackers violated the law. From that starting point, he goes on to construct a dishonest model that equates the seriousness of the conduct of both groups and potential harm.

Attacking the center of government to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in a democracy, and assaulting law enforcement officers in the process, is far more dangerous and serious than occupying a college campus. Sammin may not explicitly say so, but the clear implication of his argument is that both the college occupiers and the Capitol attackers are equal threats. His position is made clear by his question about whether the student occupiers and the Capitol attackers will be prosecuted similarly, with the implication that they should be.

Murder and shoplifting are both illegal. They are not equally harmful. Neither is the conduct of the two groups. It is worth making the distinction. It is dishonest to do otherwise.

Mike Carroll, Philadelphia

Once again, too many leaders in America have adopted the point of view that if you criticize the Israeli government, you must be antisemitic and/or anti-Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth. For years, many Jews in America, Israel, and around the world have been criticizing the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government about its role in the West Bank, its strange machinations in Gaza, and its treatment of non-Israelis in Israel proper. But no one paid any attention. Massive demonstrations were held in Israel, no less, when Bibi attempted to usurp the role of the Israeli judiciary. This greatly weakened and distracted his government. This, in part, led Hamas to strike when it did and to have far more “success” than it anticipated. (You can argue it would have raided Israel at some point anyway, but the weakened government distractions, coupled with Israel’s ultra-heavy reliance on high-tech defenses, gave Hamas a far greater opportunity to kill, maim, and destroy than it otherwise would have had.) No excuses or mercy for Hamas, but the ultra-right-wing Israeli government is hardly blameless for the mess in the Middle East.

Frank Friedman, Delanco

I so appreciated the recent expert opinion by Raina Merchant about the benefits of more people learning CPR. She states that the goals of the American Heart Association are to improve survival from cardiac arrest by providing more CPR training to a broad section of people. Currently, there are 43 states that have enacted some form of law that mandates or recommends CPR training for high school students prior to graduation. In Pennsylvania, Senate Bill 115 was passed by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2019. This bill recommends but does not mandate CPR training for graduation. Does your high school teach CPR to its students? Shouldn’t this be mandated throughout the commonwealth?

Charlene Lindsey, retired, school nurse, Holland

It has become obvious that there will always be an endless supply of legal and illegal guns in the U.S., which means gun violence and thousands of needless deaths will continue to escalate year after year. But what would happen if there were no bullets for those guns?

My idea to end gun violence is radical, but we’ve reached the point where nothing short of a radical change will end the surge in gun violence in our country. My plan would call for the U.S. government to strictly regulate the five largest American ammunition companies, thus limiting the availability of bullets to everyone except the military and the police. Of the 10 largest ammunition companies in the world, five are American: General Dynamics Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., Sierra Bullets, Nosler Inc., and Hornady Manufacturing Co. Under my plan, any sales of bullets — other than to military or police — would be heavily taxed at 50%, and the U.S. government would have to compensate these companies for lost revenue with big tax breaks.

I know this idea is radical and would be unfair to the thousands of law-abiding hunters, sportsmen, and those who legally carry firearms for protection, but I feel change will never happen without sacrifice.

Rick Goldberg, Warminster

For almost 15 years, Lower Merion has been under siege from a company wanting to install huge, electronic billboards in the township. It’s to the township’s credit that it has held these people off for so long. But now we hear talk of a possible “compromise” — namely, a mammoth electronic sign installed midway along a 4-mile, wooded stretch of the Schuylkill Expressway between the Manayunk and Conshohocken exits. With its sequence of delightful views across the river to the wooded slopes of Miquon and Shawmont, this scenic section has no signs other than directional.

Such a billboard would not only be a distraction and an eyesore to the thousands of drivers who travel that scenic section but also to the thousands of hikers and bikers who travel the Schuylkill River Trail opposite — not to mention those folks in Shawmont and Miquon who will have a grandstand view of it. And what of its impact on the Schuylkill River Greenway?

Many of you have seen how these giant, electronic billboards are proliferating, and how they have forever marred scenic sections of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Northeast extension.

Billboards are one thing, but billboards in scenic areas are another.

Please stay tuned to what your townships are trying to do, and if you value our lovely, Pennsylvania scenery and aspire to a certain quality of life, make your township aware of your view on these billboards and give it the support it needs to defeat these people who value money more than they do our scenic countryside.

Peter Grove, Narberth, pagrove43@icloud.com

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