Harvard study shows affirmative action needed

There are two cover stories in Thursday's Wildcat: "Students bake up race debate," about a group of students who are unhappy about affirmative action, and "Tenure at UA harder for women to achieve." What is the relationship between these two stories? Do the students protesting affirmative action discount the Harvard tenure study? Have they done one of their own, showing that in fact there is parity between white male professors and others, on this campus and elsewhere?

Do the College Republicans really believe that blacks, Hispanics and women face a level playing field? Are they aware of legal and extra-legal exclusion from housing, jobs and education? The inequitable provision of public services? Racial profiling? Tracking in the schools? The differential in family wealth based on housing segregation? Last winter, a black faculty member was harassed by the Tucson police for driving while black. Did this have nothing to do with his race?

What about affirmative action for whites: College admissions preference for the children of alumni and social networks that provide jobs, etc.? If blacks, Hispanics and women are really getting such a good deal, would any of you white males like to change places with us? I didn't think so.

Beth Henson
history junior

Affirmative action has marked effects on world

This letter is in response to Patrick Bigger's "College Republicans 'just making it worse.'" It is a strong possibility that when you wake up from the dream that you wrote your letter in, you will see the world around you in a clearer manner. First, you state that the "United States is more segregated today than ever before." I see your point if we're talking along the lines of partisan politics, but to compare racial tension in a city like Detroit to an entire country enveloped with racial tension as the United States was 40 years ago is downright preposterous. Secondly, did you pull the statistic that "the majority of white people go to cushy suburban schools" out of thin air or do you mean that at cushy suburban schools, the majority of the students are white people? I know for a fact that the "majority" of white people did not and do not go to schools of extreme affluence. In Tucson, an extreme majority of the school funding from the state goes to the schools in the "ghetto" while the nice schools thrive from funding from the community they are in.

I used to be all in favor of affirmative action until it affected me in a drastic way. In high school, I earned a 3.6 GPA while participating in three sports, band and student government at what has been called one of the top 10 public high schools in the nation. Unfortunately, because I am from a white, middle-class family, I don't deserve a scholarship to the UA, while a friend of mine - who is only half-Hispanic and from the same social class earned the same GPA with no extracurriculars at one of the worst high schools in the state of Arizona - got a full ride. Where's the equity in that? It certainly isn't a "level playing field" if all of the players on that field are judged on the color of their skin rather than their performance. Are there racist white supremacists in this country? Yes. Is racism a major problem that needs a solution? Of course. But solving it with affirmative action is like fighting fire with fire. The bottom line is that affirmative action is inherently racist. The solution is love. Love thy neighbor as thyself and we can all get along.

Jeff Beran
electrical engineering junior

Income tax inconsistent with U.S. Constitution

With over 45,662 pages of regulations associated with the federal income tax and an IRS error rate ranging between 28 percent and 60 percent when answering questions, it's no wonder columnist Tim Belshe felt put out on tax day this year. Congress's perpetual desire to mire America in class warfare and social engineering is responsible for the gargantuan, 2.8 million-word behemoth known as the Internal Revenue Code.

In his article, Belshe makes the classic mistake of confusing the paying of income taxes with civic duty. Civic duty comes from being a productive member of society and participating in the free market - not from empowering government to steal from one segment of society in order to redistribute it to another that didn't earn it. Any tax that presumes to take property directly from those who earn it is nothing more than a slave tax that creates indentured servants out of those forced to pay it.

The federal government has several constitutional methods for raising needed revenue to carry out its constitutional functions each year. Well over a trillion dollars is raised each year by means of constitutionally sound forms of taxation. Unfortunately, the federal income tax is not one of them. While it's generally accepted that the 16th Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1913, what we don't hear discussed is that the Supreme Court ruled the 16th Amendment gave no new powers of taxation to the federal government and that income is defined as a corporate profit.

Unless Belshe is a registered corporation, he may want to re-evaluate his alleged tax liability and rethink his conclusion that paying a slave tax to an agency operating outside constitutional limitations is a civic duty. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Terry Bressi
lunar and planetary laboratory engineer

Rape prevention the responsibility of men

I am writing in response to Jon Knutson's letter yesterday criticizing Sara Warzecka's column, "She was asking for it." Knutson argues that wearing a "skimpy skirt" is correlated with rape and that women have a choice in whether they are sexually assaulted. He continues by stating, "No one believes that a woman 'asks' to be date-raped, or a lifelong smoker 'asks' to die of lung cancer, but we all must take responsibility for the measured risks we consciously engage in."

Knutson supports a tired and old way of thinking that blames the victim of rape for the assault. This assumption is absolutely false. The truth is that only men can prevent rape. Knutson's analogy comparing rape to smoking suggests that rape is an act with no actor, like carcinogens packed into a cigarette that the smoker knowingly inhales. Rape is a crime that one person commits against another. How a woman is dressed has no correlation to sexual assault, as evidenced by the fact that rape is a pervasive crime that affects every age group of women, from young girls to the elderly. By victim-blaming, men can put off our responsibility for the prevention of rape, but this is a responsibility that lies in our hands. We can either continue this outdated way of thinking by defining women who dress the way they want to as "sluts" who deserve to be assaulted (as Knutson does so elegantly in his letter), or we can be proactive in preventing this crime. By making sure that all sexual intimacy is active, mutual, un-coerced and consenting, educating ourselves about sexual assault and speaking out against attitudes that are harmful to women, we as men can truly prevent rape. Let us not look toward women when we as men are the only ones who can put an end to this crime.

Noah Aleshire
political science and creative writing junior

Renters' tax redundant due to property taxes

As some of you may have heard, the Republicans in this city are proposing a 15 percent tax on all renters in Tucson. Since our local resources have been depleted due to a suffocating administration in Washington that has a track record with unfunded mandates like the No Child Left Behind Act and soaring security costs incurred by Arizonans when Attorney General John Ashcroft issues an Orange Alert to make everyone feel afraid and on edge at the whim of his pen and a news conference.

Now, besides being angry at our president, let's take a closer look at the leaders in our city. Various Republican city leaders want to tax the renters in our town to replenish the coffers. The problem with this proposal is that renters already pay property taxes! Ask any renter or landlord if property taxes are already figured into the monthly bill. And taxing the working and middle classes twice over is just plain wrong.

Josh Silverstein
Progressive Youth Caucus director