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PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE
The sexual abuse of Oregon inmates at a private prison in Arizona is certainly a tragedy ["Private Affairs," WW, Oct. 22, 1997]. The case points to the need to safeguard the constitutional rights of all people incarcerated in correctional facilities--both public and private. However, writer Maureen O'Hagan uses the unfortunate experiences of the inmates to suggest that private prisons are inherently unsafe and costly. That is an unfair characterization. Privately run prisons and their staffs are more accountable for abuses than government-run prisons and their public employees. The Supreme Court recently ruled that staff members of private prisons can be held personally liable for violating a prisoner's constitutional rights. Government guards are essentially granted immunity for their abuses. Also, O'Hagan claims we pay more per prisoner at private facilities than at government institutions. Did she take into account the immense costs of constructing new prisons in calculating how much it costs the government to house a prisoner? Did she include the cost of collecting funding from the taxpayers? And did she factor in the cost of locating and purchasing land for the prisons? Most likely not. These omissions skew her figures. Privately owned prisons still save money in the long run. This is not to downplay the suffering of Ms. Bannister and the other inmates. The state should step up its oversight of private prisons, as it has done with the Arizona facility. However, we must not allow the appalling behavior of the staff at one prison to derail the state's efforts to protect its citizens at a lower cost. Erich Stiefvater, Southeast Evergreen Street, Milwaukie
BREATHLESS OVER BILL
I read Mr. Feit's breathless account of the "coming of age" of Bill Sizemore with interest and amusement; as much for his assumptions as for his actual points ["The Tax Man Cometh," WW, Oct. 22, 1997]. Let me address a few of those assumptions: He obviously feels that most of the opposition to Mr. Sizemore is based on a belief that he is a buffoon and crackpot: a person not to be taken seriously by the public, especially as a candidate for governor. And it is further assumed, as a subtext of the peice, that once his buffoonery is laid to rest he is now to be taken seriously as a possible governor for this state. Mr. Feit then goes on to lay that charge of "buffoonery" to rest by telling us (gasp of surprise!) that Mr. Sizemore has ties to the reactionary Right. Well, all of us who are the social targets of Mr. Sizemore, poor and working-class people, have taken him seriously for a long time. It has been obvious to us that Mr. Sizemore's real agenda is to whip up anti-government fervor by appealing to the natural disinclination to pay taxes. Why this anti-government fervor? Since at least the time of the New Deal, the right wing has seen that Democracy can be used by poor and working people to mediate, by way of legislation, the relations between employer and employee, between those with money and influence and those who have none. This has been the source of the real complaint of the right. So it is not too surprising that Mr. Sizemore and his friends don't want to "cut taxes, but change how we collect taxes". Obviously. In most of the legislation they propose we see how they want to shift from progressive taxes to regressive ones. All of this has the result of making the poor, poorer and the rich, richer and comes with the happy by-product of discrediting the idea of democracy (read "the government") as a way to mediate social relations to insure that people like Mr. Sizemore and his allies in business cannot force their own interests upon the rest of the citizenry. Anyone who seeks, like Mr. Sizemore, to become part of government by working to undermine the very idea of the efficacy of government, is not fit for public service; he is a private wolf seeking a public sheeps clothing. George Westover, Northeast 125th Place
"SCREWED" SKEWED
I just read your article on the sexual harassment suit by former Reed professor Frédéric Canovas ["Screwed," WW, Oct. 29, 1997] with a mixture of irritation and vague amusement. As a recent grad of Reed, I found your portrayal of the school um...a little skewed, if not downright inaccurate in some cases. First of all, you imply that one reason students leave Reed is the lack of fraternities and football teams. Excuse me? I've known a lot of people who have left Reed because of academic pressure, personal problems, expensive tuition or the regrettably homogeneous student body, but not one of them was disappointed about the lack of organized sports or beer-drenched hazing at Reed. Second, yes, only 67 percent of freshmen graduate in five years, but that number is not the drop-out rate. Some students take more than five years, but they finish. I also take issue with the context you choose to put this sexual harassment case in. You imply that the free-wheeling atmosphere of the student body and Samuel Danon's (alleged) treatment of Dr. Canovas are both products of a laissez-faire attitude on the part of the administration. You make it sound as if anything goes at Reed, but you fail to mention the Honor Principle, which states that no one in the Reed community can cause anyone else "unnecessary discomfiture." The freedom given to the students at Reed does not extend to infringing on the rights or personal space of others, as Dr. Danon is accused of doing. I find it unfortunate that WWeek equates intellectual and personal freedom with "breeding self-absorbed arrogance" and condoning inappropriate behavior. Finally, I find it a sad commentary on American culture that Reed is criticized for not offering marketing, and called "increasingly anachronistic" for teaching the classics in literature, philosophy and art. I would be willing to bet my graduate stipend that, thanks to the crummy American education system, few of the freshmen at the university where I attend grad school could tell the difference between Plato and Socrates, but most could probably name all four Spice Girls. And this is the future of America? Kathy Reeves, Cambridge, MA
THE NEW ELITE
At the core of their article about the alleged sexual harassment of Frédéric Canovas by Reed French professor Samuel Danon, Maureen O'Hagan and Elizabeth Manning provide an important and troubling exposé of a specific case ["Screwed," WW, Oct. 29, 1997]. Canovas presents graphic detail of repeated sexual harassment, and of shifty administrative maneuvering which led to his dismissal. And the silence of Reed and Danon, though probably a legal necessity, does nothing to weaken his complaint. Clearly, there is an important issue of institutional discrimination here. What I strongly object to, however, is the rhetoric and format of the article which extend the particulars of Canovas' case to a reactionary hatchet job of Reed and its place in Portland, and more troublingly, the importance of a liberal arts education in today's "global marketplace." The article is laced with Harper's-style factoids and specious lines of reasoning which look down upon the supposed Reed lifestyle and ethos with a disapproving air. Is it relevant to Canovas' story that an underage Reed student had wine with his Commons meal, that students reportedly drop acid at Renn Fayre, or that Reed does not (God forbid!) offer courses in marketing or computer programming? Locals have known these things about Reed for years (the Atheism motto is at least 40 years old, and who really takes communism seriously anymore anyway?). In other times--those regrettable Sixties perhaps--such facts might be accepted as the eccentricities of a free-thinking environment. In these heady days of high dividends and a safer, cleaner Portland, however, there seems to be some serious deviance going down at Reed College. The implication of the article is that Danon's actions, and the administration's lack of action, are part of a larger pattern of arrogance, disrespect and economic irrelevance at Reed. What O'Hagan and Manning overlook, or neglect to say, is that an institution like Reed, and the "anachronistic" education it provides, offers young, intelligent students a chance to explore nonconformity, and perhaps to develop thoughtful, complex individual viewpoints. Unlike its more "relevant" counterpart, corporate darling the University of Phoenix, Reed doesn't prepare a student to take a grey-suited place on the fast track of technology and corporate affluence, but rather provides a background in history and philosophy to critique eloquently the excesses of these latest gods of capitalism and conservatism. Perhaps the authors would have us replace those musty Plato, Sophocles and Marx with Gates, Turner and Knight. You could learn a lot from a billionaire. Reed, of course, has its shortcomings, and the Canovas case is a serious charge. But the prudish and paternal attitude and crude format (mug shot of Danon, sinister monolith of Reed) with which the story is reported undermine WW's claims to being a news alternative. There are some interesting stories here--the mutual antipathy and stereotypes between Reed and mainstream Portland, and the role of a liberal arts education in these materialistic times--but the WW authors handle these issues with a simplistic boosterism I would expect from The Oregonian or Channel 8 news. The new Portland elite needs its voice too, I suppose. Jude P. Webre, Southeast Ankeny Street |
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