Monday, 7/21/97 Letters
Justice at last After seeing the numbers of fall admissions in the UC system, I have come to one conclusion: All those years of affirmative action did nothing. What is usually ignored is that while "minority" admissions decreased at UCLA and at Berkeley, they increased at UC Riverside and other UC schools. The reason that the Berkeley law school will have no new African American students is because African Americans and others have been unfairly frightened by so-called and self-declared ethnic leaders who have lied to them, as well as the fact that those who where admitted choose to not come here, showing exactly who favors the "new segregation" being touted lately. Let us remember that the the number of white and Asian acceptances shows the number of whites and Asians who were previously denied admission under affirmative action just because of the color of their skin. Daniel B. Rego Sophomore Political Science One league just wouldn't work Though I think many things Rocky Salmon mentioned in his column, "Talented women deserve equal play," were unfounded, I'll just discuss a couple of things. I was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University from 1990-1994. The Vanderbilt men's basketball team usually gets into the NIT if not the NCAA tournament, while the women's basketball team is usually an NCAA title contender. Guess what? Almost all of the men's games are sellouts, and the basketball band (I was a member) plays at every single men's home game. Neither is true at women's games - attendance is usually below 1,000 and the basketball band only comes when we play Tennessee (another highly ranked women's team). A little research would show that such abysmal attendance at top-64 women's games is the rule, and not the exception. So Salmon's comment that people "do not attend games because of gender; they attend because the team is winning" is not true. Also, Salmon's plan to marginalize the exceptional women athletes in the NBA is naive, for several reasons. It might be true that many women prefer playing basketball with other women, as many men prefer playing with other men, exclusively. Moreover, the average height of an NBA player is probably a foot taller than the average height of a female player. Such a height discrepancy, in basketball, makes a huge difference even if the players are all men. So not having a separate women's league would easily shut out almost all the talented women players who want to play pro ball (for other reasons as well). The point of creating women's leagues is so that women can get to play pro ball, fans get to enjoy watching, and owners make huge profits. This is hardly accomplished if only a handful of infinitely exceptional women players get to play in an almost exclusive male club, and owners make huge profits. Now to make things worse, Salmon says, "Don't you think that if Jerry West thought that Rebecca Lobo could help the Lakers he would sign her?" Note that this is not the same as saying "If Rebecca Lobo could play ball as well as most Laker team members, do you think Jerry West would sign her?" It is amazing that Salmon expects an economic system, in one fell swoop, to cure all the obstacles which prevent talented women players from getting the same salaries as similarly talented men. Now I expect you editors to invite someone to give an alternate viewpoint to Salmon's article. It is only fair. Especially since the title of the column is so misleading. Regis Smith Graduate Student Mathematics