Dave Duschene’s 9/23 column claimed that sitting back and calmly accepting a $150 tuition increase was a practical way of dealing with the realities of life.

I say bunk. It is possible that Dave can sit back and pay the $150 increase, but I cannot. It’s not that I don’t understand the “realities.” On the contrary, the reality is I don’t have the money.

I spent four years working to earn the money for my college education, but I might not be able to afford the tuition for next semester—and that’s a reality.

When we protested the Regents meeting last week it was not an attack on the Regents but a demand that they not pass the buck to the students. Say no to Springfield was our demand, refuse to operate on the meager “allowance” they’ve allotted us. Raising our tuition does not solve the university’s problem; it only postpones it. The university cannot operate on this budget; teachers cannot survive without salary increases; depatments cannot manage with overloaded or cancelled classes, limited lab hours and worn out equipment. A $150 tuition increase is not going to solve any of these problems.

We must communicate with Springfield, be it through letters, phonecalls, sit-ins, strikes or teach-ins. We must communicate our disgust. The people who run our government—whom we elected—have had their chance to be educated. They do not have the right to deny us and future generations that same chance.

We’re sending millions of dollars to the Contras to finance the indiscriminate murder of innocent people in the name of “democracy” but we cannot educate our own citizens. In the name of democracy and in fear of the “realities” of a future congested with uneducated ignorant citizens, I demand my right to be educated at a reasonable cost.

Dave, go ahead, sit in your easy chair, watch MTV and delude yourself that you’re in touch with reality while the rest of us take reality by the horns and fashion it into the world we believe we should live in—a world where intellectual pursuit is not prohibited by exorbitant costs and political tomfoolery.

Julia M. Morrisroe

senior