New ticket policy most likely illegal

I am happy to see Arizona athletics and the Associated Students of the University of Arizona actively looking for ways to solve the problems of the student section. However, I believe the new policy of selling remaining open seats raises some legal issues.

The seats being sold before the game have already been sold and therefore cannot be sold again. Also, the policy states access could be denied to ticket-holders arriving late, thereby wasting the money spent on the ticket.

Furthermore, event tickets don’t fall into the same category as airline tickets, because unlike an airline ticket, you can’t watch a live repeat of the game. I appreciate the effort to reward spirited fans; however, this new policy raises too many ethical and legal issues to be continued in its present form.

Jeffrey Grynkewich
Management and entrepreneurship senior

Targeted scholarships not discriminatory

Targeted scholarships are not discrimination, as Brody Holohan would like you to believe. Targeted scholarships aimed at changing the population of the UA so that it looks like that of the state is a legal and affirmative response to one of the most visible vestiges of the failures of the civil rights movement.

The civil rights movement lost a lot of steam once the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts were passed because people assumed that because we were equal under the law that people would be equal in fact. The racial education disparity that exists not just in Arizona but in every state of the union is a failure of the civil rights movement to continue the fight until there is truly equality in fact: equality in opportunity, equality in education and equality in justice.

Tom Campbell, a former Republican congressman from the Bay Area, not only has the right idea; he has the right long-overdue idea.

Jared Hautamaki
Second-year law student

Morefield column contains inaccuracies

Although I agree with the point of Mike Morefield’s article, “What Wouldn’t Jesus do?” I am upset by the misleading and sometimes outright false statistics he uses to support his point.

First of all, he says that Mormonism has seen “rapid growth followed by significant decline within the span of a generation,” even though his evidence for this is that “the growth of the LDS population has been declining since 1989.” However, this just says that the growth is slowing down — it is still a rapidly growing church. The Web site http://lds.about.com says that 283,138 people were converted from 2001 to 2002 and that 81,132 children were born to Mormon families.

Also, the term “evangelical Protestantism” is misleading, because although an extremely small proportion of Protestant churches that are considered extreme evangelical churches are growing, the larger Protestant denominations that could also be considered evangelical are actually shrinking.

Matt Ehrlich
History sophomore

Response to UA Mall preachers shows students seeking truth

I couldn’t agree more with Janne Perona’s Tuesday column “UA Mall preachers not representative of their religion” — only I feel I must add to it. As a Christian, I’d be lying if I said that the men on campus last week didn’t anger me. I stood out there two days, once even confronting one of them with Romans 2:1, which, paraphrased, says that if you judge another, you’re only judging yourself.

After hearing his response and listening to others’ questions, I actually found the man was speaking truthfully. What is hard to take, though, is the way he chooses to do so (in my opinion, without love).

So, of course, when something upsets me, I become angry. And yet I must stop myself. Is not my judgment of him or any other “Mall preacher” a form of participation in the very thing that I am angered with in the first place?

Yes, I agree that “there will always be those who misunderstand, and thus misrepresent, Christianity.” And guess what? I am one of them. I’m not perfect — in fact, Jesus Christ is the only one who ever represented Christianity perfectly. So yes, while I agree that a problem is that “these preachers are a poor illustration of the Christian faith” and that they turn a lot of people off to Christianity, when I’m honest, I’ll admit that I am too — because another thing that turns people off to Christianity is hypocrisy, and I by no means am perfect.

I agree with Perona’s point that, “the only good that comes out of situations such as these is the opportunity to learn.” You know what I learn by listening to preachers such as these and becoming uncomfortable from the heated arguments that inevitably ensue? That people on this campus have questions. They are seeking truth. And if I ever think to myself otherwise, then by all means — bring on the preachers. Because I am seeking truth, too.

Cori Smith
Communication sophomore

Napolitano looking out for Arizonans

Arizona’s Democratic governor Janet Napolitano once again stood up for Arizonans by calling the state Legislature into special session Tuesday night to work with her to properly fund English Language Learner programs. Republicans must put political tactics aside and do what’s right for Arizona’s families and students. Rather than follow court mandates and fund this crucial education program, Arizona’s conservative lawmakers are on the verge of wasting taxpayers’ money to the tune of $500,000 a day! With their political stunts, Republicans are putting into question the ability to give Arizona teachers a much-deserved salary increase, funding to protect the border, providing small businesses with much needed health care credit and paying back state debts. Issues facing the state Legislature are far too important to play politics with. Arizonans deserve better and how Republicans in Phoenix fail to see that is a mystery.

David Martinez III
Secondary education junior
President, UA Young Democrats