UAPD officer should be fired for assault on wife
I was not surprised to read the other day that a UAPD officer was arrested for beating his wife. I was astonished, however, to read that he is still employed with UAPD. If the campus police actually believed in the safety of its students, they would fire Tracey. Police are well known for abusing the rights of those they are supposed to protect. Adding a known violent offender certainly doesn't help the situation.
The systematic protection of cops by cops is nothing new. Remember last year when a TPD officer was sent home for coming to work drunk instead of being arrested for a DUI? I thought they were trying to crack down on drunk driving. What about the UAPD officer who roughed up a professor? His "punishment" was kept secret. Gee, I wonder why. A survey last year by the Tucson Weekly revealed that a majority of police departments refused access to complaint forms.
If the students were UAPD's first priority, Tracey would be fired. Unfortunately, they are still preoccupied with raiding parties.
Mike Sousa
art education senior
UA continuing tradition of suppressing Indians
As some of you continuing Indian grad students may know, I have always opposed the placement of the American Indian Grad Center under NASA for the very reason that the Multicultural Programs Unit within the UA would not be able to protect and continue the original design of the AIGC. The design was to afford Indian grad students with not only a service, but also a welcoming community space where older Indian grad students could meet and feel at home amidst this large, vast and foreign new place. Over the years, I have met many of my friends at the AIGC, and likely would not have ever done so if it had not existed.
Officials have just announced that the AIGC on Helen Street will be demolished after May 14 to create a multi-level parking lot. What now is about to happen is that the AIGC's hospitable space and atmosphere is to be figuratively and physically crushed by the idea that the public university must serve the greatest number of people and that this will serve the greatest good.
This mentality has run rampant through and over our Indian peoples time and time again over the last several centuries. Oklahoma Indians know full well the power of this mentality and its fracturing effects on tribal sovereignty and community over time. Minimizing our space in this case is not far different than the colonizing mentalities employed against us in the past. Indeed, the realization by the larger society that colonialism had created harmful and lingering effects on certain Americans was one of the reasons why the ethnic centers on campus were created in the first place.
The symbolism of the construction of another massive parking lot on the same grounds as the place of our community center is appalling. While the decision-making and implementation of university policy in this matter is far more complex than is being portrayed here, its reverberating effects, the minimizing of space and services for Indian grad students, as well as the physical desecration of the house itself, does not strike me as rational. Indeed, it offends my good memories of the place and makes feelings hurt.
Some might say that times have to change, but I say are they really changing? Or are they merely repeating the themes in the stories of the Old Ones?
Luke Ryan
history graduate student
Deny idea of American flag in every classroom
Every effort must be exhausted to deny Tyler Mott his desire to have a U.S. flag in every university classroom. This idea creates another opportunity for the University of Arizona to use the flag, a symbol of war, as a propaganda device to further the interests of the military-industrial complex. Furthermore, the flag should be removed from university athletic uniforms, and the "A" on Sentinel Peak should once again be painted white.
Randy Dinin
UA alumnus
Republicans determine when vote should count
I hope I am not the only one who was able to see the incredible hypocrisy in the statements made by Tyler Mott in Tuesday's article "Student sees red, white and blue."
In one breath Mott proclaims that the U.S. flag "represents freedom and gives us the ability to share our ideas and our voices." In the next breath, he insists that a vote on the issue of flags in every classroom is not needed. Leave it to a Republican to determine when and where a person's vote should count.
Mr. Mott claims to want to encourage an open discussion about the issue, but then preemptively discounts any possible argument opposing the flags as being "baseless." What's worse is that he then goes on to slap the label "unpatriotic" on anyone with might dare exercise his or her freedom of speech to oppose him.
It seems that lately Republicans are redefining the word "unpatriotic" to include anyone that dare speak out against war, the president or their views. Call me unpatriotic then, but I, personally, would like to hear both sides to this argument ÷ preferably without preemptive labeling. I'd also like to see the issue of flags in every classroom voted on. I believe the flag also represents "democracy." That is, unless the Republicans have redefined that word as well.
Doug Copeland
higher education administration graduate student
Don't have Îfar right' put flags in every classroom
The level to which the so-called promotion of free speech defiles our rights constantly amazes me.
Tyler Mott believes that the flag represents our country and its principles: free speech, democracy and freedom, yet he dismisses the need for a vote, one of the basic foundations of the United States and freedom. He calls the opposition baseless, saying "I know there will be some opposition to the idea, but the opposition would be unpatriotic and counterproductive." In other words, anyone choosing to exercise free speech and give an opinion is unpatriotic and probably doesn't have free speech rights in this view. I feel so loved by this country.
Let's also not forget that UA has a large international student population. It would be disrespectful and possibly oppressive to those people to force the flag upon them. They came to explore American culture and academia, not have the far right rammed down their throats.
It's not up to Mott or Facilities Management what goes in a classrooms; it is up to the students and the faculty who look at the room every day. Personally, I do not want to look at a flag everyday, in every class and be reminded of the destruction committed in its name.
Until someone can come up with an argument that doesn't sound so hyprocritical, say NO to flags in our classrooms.
If the classrooms are bland, get some artwork. Or maybe I'll start a fund to hang Iraqi flags in all the classrooms. And if the flags do get put in, don't forget to remember those murdered in the "defense" of our country.
Roeland Hancock
psychology and math sophomore