Students should support SAF despite politics

Regarding 'Old argument, old ploy' (Katherine Reilly, April 2):

Reilly calls "absurd" the Students for Academic Freedom's (SAF) investigation of the faculty on the suspicion that professors might be biased against conservative students. Let us examine the facts that inspired this investigation to determine if it is in fact "absurd."

The overwhelming majority of professors vote and donate Democrat, and conservative students have complained to SAF that they feel discriminated against.

SAF is not ready to jump to any conclusions, but we believe that the facts warrant an investigation. I am confident that Katherine Reilly would be one of the first to call for an investigation of a department — and rightly so — on suspicion of bias if an overwhelming majority of its faculty were white and a number of African-American students taking classes in the department felt that they were being discriminated against because of their race.

In a political arena, it would be understandable for Reilly, who is a liberal, to be unconcerned with the plight of conservatives, but this is the academic arena. As students, we should all be concerned when a minority feels discriminated against, and I encourage all students to lay aside their politics and support the SAF investigation. Evan Baehr '05

Barillari, what club are you a member of?

Regarding 'Beast(s) at Princeton' (Joseph Barillari, April 6):

It seems Prospect's perennial gadfly, Joseph Barillari, has returned with his familiar cries of "O tempora, o mores." While I could note that, once again, Barillari has neglected to list a single college campus that he finds safer than Princeton for its alcohol record and system, I will instead challenge him on one of his statements impugning Newton's article.

Barillari, in response to Eastvold's assertions on clubs serving hard alcohol, responded "mine does, weekly."

Why is Barillari so coy about naming his own club in the article? If this club is, in fact, one of the few (in my experience, if he is being truthful, it would be the only) club making hard alcohol available weekly, producing the environment that he, with a smug sense of moral superiority, labels "bestial," why not name it, that we might all publicly shame them into ending this practice that is being funded by his own club dues?

Barillari cannot have it both ways. Certain actions cannot be reprehensible for others and excusable for his personal cabal. If he truly believes that an "increasing number of students are irrational beasts in need of a 'safe environment,' " then he must publish the name of his club that is contributing to this environment. Otherwise, his endless exhortations to change the nature and culture of Prospect are nothing more than empty rhetoric. Zachary Goldstein '05 Editor's Note: Barillari says he is a member of Terrace F. Club.