Thank you, George Beres
I read the commentary by George Beres, “Middle East discussion in need of solid University curriculum,” (ODE, May 22). I’ve also read the responses, in which Beres was chastised for overlooking some of the details of how programs are funded at the University. However, I haven’t read any letters that really shared Beres’ dismay at the fact that the University offers so few options for students seeking a balanced curriculum, covering such a critical part of the world as the Middle East.
Although there may be more “philanthropists” willing (and able) to spend private money for Judaic Studies and other specialty programs at this public university, the fact remains that University students are not being offered a strong nonbiased option to focus their studies on events in the Middle East — especially as those studies might relate to Israel and Palestine.
So thank you, George Beres, for pointing out the need for a viable (well funded) and balanced Middle Eastern Studies program. And thanks also for your comments about the conspicuous lack of protest regarding United States/Israel policy (“Campus protesters take a break,” ODE, April 16).
I’ll be watching for more of Beres’ letters in the future.

Paul Griffes

junior

history

‘Jeff Olivers’ of the world

need a reality check
In response to the “Judging people by the color of their skin” by Jeff Oliver (ODE, May 29), I am also from the Midwest, but from the housing projects. Chances are as high that the Jeff Olivers will go out into the world and not interface with people of color as I will be stopped for driving black over and over again. Of course, mine is already a reality.
Will preferential admission of African Americans to the University of Michigan change that? I hope so, because whatever we got now is not working.
The emphasis here is access to opportunities, and in the African American community it is easier to go to prison than it is to go to college. That stinks. Trying to correct the past is a bitter pill to swallow in a society based on greed and amnesia. Regardless of the token clubs on campus, it is only in lieu of a student body and staff in parity with the United States, since we are so bleeping united nowadays.
Ask my 73-year-old mother about diversity. She did not finish high school in Mississippi because the post-era white slaveowners figured that black people did not belong in schools, but in the fields working off bottomless sharecropping debts — so that the Jeffs of the world could one day grow up on a cul-de-sac with absolutely no sense of how they got there.
Right on to the University of Michigan.

Jone Roparte

Eugene