LETTERS: SUNY tuition, no-fault divorce and more

Clarifying points on SUNY tuition change

"Albany debates SUNY tuition plan" contains several misleading points. First, while Sen. Kenneth LaValle indicates his present opposition to the bill as a member of the Senate minority, he was a member of the 2007 Commission on Higher Education which recommended precisely these reforms.

Second, the article asserts that "some student leaders and professional unions object." However, it neglects to mention that the SUNY Student Assembly, representing all 460,000 SUNY students, endorsed the bill, as has the SUNY Faculty Senate, representing tens of thousands of faculty across SUNY's 29 state-operated campuses.

Finally, professor Candelario Franco states that Stony Brook would charge three times more than the state's lesser-known public colleges. In fact, under the proposed tuition caps, it would take 30 years for such a differential to occur.

Daniel Doktori

Albany

Editor's note: The writer is Gov. David A. Paterson's director of higher education.

No-fault divorce overdue in New York

The negative consequences that affect children of divorce will always be a matter of debate . For New York State Catholic Conference Executive Director Richard Barnes to argue that the one-year separation now required changes educational achievement rates or rates of substance abuse and criminal behavior in children of divorce, is absurd. The breakdown of family starts years before a divorce is acted upon.

The fact that a parent must now state adultery or cruelty as a means for divorce, when quite possibly neither of these occurred, is part of the stigma of divorce. A no-fault law is a step in the right direction.

The only people in control of a divorce are the couple themselves. It is their behavior and maturity that will ultimately decide the fate of their family, not a mandatory one-year separation agreement.

Deborah A. Brown

East Northport

Microstamping fails to target illegal guns

Mayor Michael Bloomberg asserts that the microstamping bill would reduce gun crime, however, this bill does not target "illegal guns" or criminals . It places an ever growing list of restrictions and increased expense on those who've done nothing wrong. Only legally acquired semiautomatic pistols would be equipped with microstamping. Where is the connection to criminals who've acquired an illegal handgun?

We should spend less time and money targeting law-abiding gun owners, and more time and money targeting criminals and guns that are actually illegal.

Steven Blair

Ronkonkoma

Editor's note: The writer runs the nonprofit organization Long Island Firearms.