I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Kaminski, whose letter was printed in the Monday issue of the Star. Freedom and equality may be abstractions, but symbolic representations of these concepts should not be abstract in a public display.

People will not look upon such a sculpture and remember the great speaker King and his accomplishments, but rather, they will envision a colossal birdbath or perhaps a giant, ugly black-and-white chalice.

They will not remember what King stood for but rather what he sat on. Maybe a more appropriate inscription would be “Oops.”

I may be slightly stupid, but $75,000 seems like an awfully large sum of money for a piece of kitsch like the thing which will one day grace our already beautiful campus.

It would have been a better idea to just leave the King Memorial Commons bare and to put the money toward something a bit more useful, like the education of Illinois students.

Seventy-five thousand dollars could have bought a part of Faraday II, it could have bought about 25 new computers for campus labs, it could have even been used to beautify NIU with trees and shrubs.

But, alas, the money will go to a sculptor who will probably use it to purchase a sports car for his driving pleasure or a state-of-the-art stereo. Or perhaps he could use it to go back to art school?

Whatever the case, we can all rest assured that the beautiful addition to the lovely NIU campus will be around to make our eyes sore for at least 100 years.

Aaron C. Cook

Sophomore

English