I am extremely concerned about a recent letter from Dr. Harry Canon to The Northern Star in the Sept. 21 issue. Dr. Cannon, a former vice president for student affairs and currently a professor, takes The Northern Star to task for an editorial that he clearly disagrees with. However, rather than cogently state his disagreements and show the inadequacy of the editorial (surely something we have a right to expect from someone of Dr. Canon’s background and qualifications) we are treated to another increasingly common instance of labeling.

Dr. Canon informs us that the editorial “risks flirtation with racism.” To the extent that there are grounds for a charge of racism, such a charge should be taken quite seriously indeed. A word so emotionally charged should be cautiously applied and when used, should be backed up by solid argument, all the more when it is a charge uttered by a person of Dr. Canon’s standing in the univeristy community.

Dr. Canon states that he believes the university “should do more to address social injustice.” If Dr. Canon means this to say that the CHANCE program should operate as one mechanism for Affirmative Action, then perhaps he should say so. Such use of the program might be desirable. However, reasonable people can and do differ about the wisdom of Affirmative Action as a mechanism for relieving the social ills of discrimination.

My reading of the Star editorial was that the CHANCE program, rather than being used as a mechanism for helping all disadvantaged students of whatever race, was being used as a device for seeking to meet minority recruitment goals. They then stated that the program should be open to all who meet the criteria without regard to race.

This appears to be an argument against using the CHANCE program as a device for Affirmative Action. If this is so, does Dr. Canon mean to claim that anyone opposed to Affirmative Action, either as a general policy or in specific instances, is therefore flirting with racism? Or merely that The Northern Star, by daring to utter such an opinion in full exercise of their rights under the First Amendment should be warned off the turf?

I very much fear that Dr. Canon, in his letter, descends to the use of the moral equivalent of McCarthyism. In this, it seems to me, he is not alone; it is becoming increasingly common. A label can usefully be used to create a category or bring to mind an analogy. But it must replace reasoned argument and debate with base emotionalism. What is developing at quite a few universities is a not so subtle campaign to curtail the free expression of opinion.

Certainly the threat of being labeled a racist, like the threat of being labeled a communist, can have the effect of chilling the free expression of opinion. If such was not the goal of Dr. Canon, why then did he merely label and not cogently argue? President La Tourette seemed perfectly capable of the latter in The Northern Star on Sept. 22 in a quite thoughtful and well argued guest opinion.

Timothy Atchison

Instructor

Department of management

and doctoral student

Political science