Campus protesters, Native American history
Student protesters march round their encampment on the Columbia University campus, Monday, April 29, 2024, in New York. Credit: AP/Stefan Jeremiah
Campus protesters teach a new lesson
For the past 75 years, since the age of 6, I’ve (mistakenly?) believed what I was taught by my parents and my kindergarten and first grade teachers: namely, that if I ever wanted something, I could wish and hope for it, but if I really wanted it, I should ask for it, or even better, work for it. It never occurred to me to demand it [“Anti-war protesters digging in,” Nation & World, April 29].
But these students and others at Columbia University and other institutions of supposedly higher learning are now teaching me — a retired teacher — that the way to get what you want is to make demands.
Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to retroactively teach my former students this apparently valuable new lesson that I am just beginning to learn.
— Richard Siegelman, Plainview
What a disgrace! Aside from the enormous expense incurred by families to send their children to our universities, as a mother and grandmother, I am well aware of the heart and soul most parents put into the success of their children’s college experience.
And now, after four years of effort, these families will be unable, in some institutions, to see their children receive diplomas because of acts of their peers as some universities cancel graduation.
— Myra Sherr, Hewlett
Native American history has benefits
I don’t understand why the state Department of Education is requiring districts to rename mascots at a large expense to the schools and taxpayers [“Where schools stand on mascot bans,” News, April 21].
The ironic part of the article is that multiple districts/towns are named after Native American tribes.
Will the state now require districts to change their names? If the job of the Education Department is to educate, does the curriculum include the origin of town names, many of them not only Native Americans on Long Island but elsewhere, as well? That would be educating, not banning history. And it would cost taxpayers a lot less.
— Timothy Myles, North Baldwin
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