Most University administrators are probably good people. While we admonish them for actions, we should never question their role in education. After all, I wouldn’t spend so much of my life in an academic setting if I had no interest in education.

There has been a great deal of controversy regarding certain e-mails that were revealed in a FOIA request. For those who haven’t read them, they’re a real treat. They involve a group of administrators, one of whom was forced to resign –joining forces to prevent a student event and misuse taxpayer dollars. The first e-mail tells us about a chancellor willing to ban students from using a facility that they pay for because he didn’t like an event that was supposed to happen there. A few emails later we hear about a vice chancellor that appreciates the fact that they have been trying to get in the way of a student event. As we witness their eagerness to limit our right to peaceably assemble and free speech, we see a professor that doesn’t care about rules making an outrageous assertion, “What other than genocide is behind the sentiment that it’s good to never see a real Indian?”

As an Indian, I would like to clarify that I do not feel that people who are inspired by a dancing Native American support genocide or even racism. As courts have ruled, the chief is a political issue and despite the appeal, I would like to urge administrators to stay out of political issues and stop working so hard to infringe on our rights. Our state and our university are in a fiscal and political crisis. It’s time for some change.

I think that the particular talents of the administrators in question would better serve the world of education by showing us how power corrupts.

Jerry Vachaparambil,

Asian American Cultural Center advisory committee member and

sophomore in LAS