Affirmative action

provides opportunities
Affirmative action continues to get a bad rap, despite the evidence that recruitment and retention programs have clearly increased opportunities for people of color, women and other underrepresented student groups. Unfortunately, due to regressive politics and ignorance about the nature of privilege, effective programs are still few and far between.
The phrase “leveling the playing field” may be a bit cliché these days, but it still makes an important point. Contrary to some opinions, affirmative action is not about giving some people an unfair advantage over others or students of color taking the “spots” of white students — an attitude that is both racist and ignorant. It’s about allowing people to have concrete opportunities in a system that continues to disadvantage them in more ways than can be catalogued.

Austin Shaw-Phillips

sophomore

undeclared

‘Thank God for cannabis’
I strongly support veteran Leroy Stubblefield’s right to use the plant cannabis (marijuana) for health reasons (“Search and Seizure,” ODE, Nov. 8).
It defies integrity and rationality to cage humans for using the plant cannabis, and to cage sick citizens using cannabis for relief of pain is vile, immoral and spiteful for a civilization in the year 2002.
At the very minimum, North America must re-legalize cannabis, especially when you consider the worst side effects of cannabis are police inflicted. Do cannabis prohibitionists even comprehend that they’re admitting a desire to cage humans for using a plant?
Instead of caging humans for using cannabis, thank God for cannabis. Accept cannabis (known as kaneh bosm, before the King James Version) for what it is, as described on literally the very first page of the Bible (Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30).

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.