Speaker will address equal opportunity

Advocates of affirmative action have propagandized by arguing that racial preferences are an aspect of the civil rights crusade. Today's corrupted vision of civil rights goes against the American civil libertarian tradition of private property, the rule of law and limited government.

In the cases of UCLA and UC Berkeley, one would not expect parents to long tolerate seeing their children work to meet the university's admission standard only to be denied admission because of racial preference programs.

Because the University of California is a taxpayer-subsidized system, one suspects that sooner or later parents and others would begin to register complaints and seek the end of racial preferences in admissions. That accounts for much of the motivation for Proposition 209.

"The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting" (Proposition 209, implemented Nov. 5, 1996, California).

Clearly, blacks have suffered historical injustices, and every vestige of discrimination has not been eliminated in America. But discrimination is by no means the barrier that it once was. We can better serve the interests of large numbers of blacks by focusing our energies on fraudulent education, disintegrating families and inner cities with climates that are hostile to economic development and personal safety. Even if affirmative action were not a violation of justice and not racial polarizing, it would still be a poor cover-up for the real problems and the real work that needs to be done.

This semester Penn State Young Americans for Freedom will focus its attention on the issue of race relations and racial preferences.

Highlighting our efforts will be a speech featuring Ward Connerly, chairman and founder of the American Civil Rights Institute. Connerly also served as chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209) campaign, which under his leadership, ultimately ended affirmative action policies in the state of California. Ward Connerly has gained national respect as an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for everyone, regardless of race or sex.

In the coming months, PS-YAF will announce the date, time and location of Connerly's speech.

Christopher Gillott
vice chairman, Penn State Young Americans for Freedom

Court should protect Texas cattlemen

The Collegian Board of Opinion quickly came to the defense of the talk show host using, how surprisingly, First Amendment rights as a vehicle to do so.

Basically, during an episode about mad cow disease, a plant-eating guest made a statement without rebuttal and with agreement from the "objective" host, that an illegal method of feeding cattle (i.e. feeding ground animal "parts") could spread mad cow disease throughout the United States.

Riddle me this:

How can beef producers of any kind do something that is illegal, when they constantly have someone (inspectors) looking over their shoulders making sure they aren't doing anything illegal?

Could these ground animals "parts" be at all similar to those that Americans ingest every day in the form of such things as hot dogs?

If this guest is a vegetarian, why does he care?

I must admit my biased stance on such an issue. I am a proud eater of the flesh, and I've been know to frequent steakhouses throughout the land. I also realize the very fabric of this nation is held together by the rights granted to us by the First Amendment, but what could be more symbolic of this great nation than cowboys and 20-ounce steaks?

Winfrey's influence on her fans is tremendous. Her "future changes in her diet" that she hastily mentioned and did not edit certainly play a part in the decline of cattle futures prices following the show. Thus, a very wealthy individual, who provides little beyond entertainment as a service to society, hurt the little guy sporting the blue collar.

I hope that those involved in the legal decision of this suit can avoid First Amendment tunnel vision and consider all the aspects of the case.

Shane Stoughton
junior-turfgrass science