I am a 1968 graduate of the University and Harvard Law School, and I have two daughters who graduated in 1998 and 2002. The first went on to the University of Chicago and is now a bilingual school social worker with a License for Clinical Social Workers. The second works for a Big Five accounting firm and will be attending the University’s law school next year.

However, I am becoming increasingly more ashamed of my affiliation with the University each year as more and more anti-Semitic garbage spews forth from The Daily Illini.

I wrote numerous letters when The Daily Illini published an outrageously anti-Semitic “letter” some time ago and then defended their incredible lack of judgment on the grounds of a “free press.” I asked then if they would have published a similar diatribe about “shiftless” or “lazy” “colored” people and if they had what would have been the University’s response. Today I saw the “cartoon” about big-nosed Jewish bankers. It was not funny, anti-Semitic, racist stereotyping without even the suggestion of a “political” message or motive. Just blatant hate. Yes, I am aware that the paper has apologized for any offense to Jews. How about any offense to humans, Americans, people of decency and good will?

It’s time to shut your rag down. Is that the impression you want of the University? Please, I know all about freedom of speech and the press. And if that “cartoon” was equally as racially offensive to your African-American population, I suspect every issue, if not the building itself, would be burnt to the ground.

No wonder out-of-state students are wary of coming to Champaign.

Yes, I’m angry and I’m a taxpayer.

Kenneth Perlman

University alumnus