I am writing to The Chronicle in response to the article “Students Voice Out Opinions About SAI,” which ran in your September 30th issue. I was absolutely shocked by this article. Not only was it grossly misleading, it was poorly written and researched, not to mention outdated-especially for someone considered to be a “staff writer” at your paper.Firstly, the anti-war protest/walk-out happened about one and a half years ago and was already well documented in The Chronicle. Using a paragraph to refresh memories about the incident is one thing; this reads like another feature solely on the incident itself. Let’s also remember that the event itself and the negative occurrences (i.e. blocking of the unispan and violence) were unfairly pinned upon the organization.The student quoted who was “scared off” because she felt “her opinions on injustice wouldn’t be tolerated” gives no examples from attending meetings or reasoning as to why she felt this way-so why was this quote included? Sure, she mentions the anti-war protest, but, to refresh memory here, that wasn’t affiliated with SAI.Really, quotes are an issue throughout the whole story. The only positive quotes are from members of the club and all the negative feedback is from supposedly randomly selected “students.” Surely this is not a fair or unbiased representation of the varying opinions on the club. I find it quite interesting that one of these quotes appears from an obvious contributor to Freedom-an organization that is blatantly conservative and therefore, obviously, disagrees with the club and its actions.As an out-of-state student, I understand the grievances behind getting rid of Citibank. But many banks offer college student accounts where ATM fines are not charged. Also, there can only be one bank on campus. One. This means everyone who doesn’t have a car and doesn’t have an account with that ONE bank suffers. I’m sure there were plenty of people who had problems with fines when Citibank was on campus; it just wasn’t an issue because it had been there for so long. This is also something that happened quite some time ago. Why is this article not more focused on the current actions of the organization? Oh, wait, it does mention one them-3/4 the way through the story.The reporter mentions that “it may be the case that one club is unable to speak for the…student body as a whole.” Call me crazy, but isn’t SGA supposed to do that? Funny, the things students forget come SGA election time…Overall, the fact that an article was written attacking a club like SAI is atrocious. Not because of what one may believe their political agenda to be, but because this is a club that goes out and accomplishes exactly the things they say that they will. If the students at Hofstra were half that motivated to go beyond the reach of their schoolwork, maybe they’d have something better to do than complain about a $2-$6 service charge.
Arlie Carsons,Hofstra Student
e-mail: [email protected]