Burness, Szoka miss the point on Hindi debate

I am writing in response to the comments made by Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations John Burness in the Sept. 8 issue of The Chronicle. Burness makes the statement, "One doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to know that culture in that area of the world is as rich as anything here, but that argument was never made." In a similar vein, Trinity sophomore Berin Szoka makes the statement, "This is not a question of continuing a debate, it is a question of starting one."

To put it bluntly, these statements do not make any sense at all. Clearly, there was much outrage generated by the letters of Szoka and Trinity sophomore Jay Strader last semester, and justifiably so given their racist undertones. But, and this is important, there were numerous letters which clearly made the very argument that Burness says was never made. In fact, the first response printed in The Chronicle on April 19 of this year was a letter by Trinity senior Anoopa Sawhney with the headline "India has ancient traditions, rich culture." Since that first response, this point has been made in various ways in numerous letters.

It is time for Szoka to stop hiding behind false and pretentious statements to the effect that the debate has not started, and respond to the compelling counter-arguments that have already been made in response to his initial comments.

Prasad Kasibhatla

Associate professor,

Nicholas School of

the Environment