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The Battalion
Page 5 • Monday, July 14, 2003
EDITORIAL
The end of an era
Closing journalism department
will come at a high price
Following two years of rhetoric about the fate of the journalism
department. Dr. Charles Johnson, dean of liberal arts, announced
Thursday his recommendation that the department and its associ
ated degree programs be closed during the next few years. The
decision, expected to be approved by Texas A&M officials, comes as
a slap in the face not only to students and faculty involved with the
department, but to all A&M students, past and present.
Claiming the closure was "the most effective way to address our
students' needs in journalism," Johnson announced his decision at
a journalism faculty meeting that A&M officials told The Battalion
would be "just a departmental meeting." While many expected the
department's closure to be announced, the death of the journalism
department can hardly be regarded as business as usual. The deci
sion, however well-thought, will come at a great price for A&M and
with many repercussions, some that are clear now and some that
won't be clear for years to come.
Johnson said no tenured, tenure track faculty or permanent staff
members will be lost. However, a gradual cessation of funding to
the department will mean that many who currently teach classes
simply won't have jobs offered to them in coming semesters. Many
more faculty members will be shifted to other departments, losing
any stability their job previously afforded them. Some may not
even want to remain at A&M, assuming they even have that option.
Students, too, will suffer from the department's closure. While no
students currently enrolled in the major will be kicked out, the
class of 2007 could be the last class to graduate with a degree in
journalism. But even that possibility has to be approved by
Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. David Prior, A&M President
Dr. Robert M. Gates and the A&M University System Board of
Regents.
And while journalism courses will still be taught, it will be in a
limited fashion. The administrative end of the department and the
journalism major itself will be lost. One can only imagine how
much potential students interested in journalism and liberal arts
will be dissuaded from attending A&M by Johnson's decision. It
also doesn't lend much value to a degree in journalism coming
from a school that will soon be without a journalism department.
While diversity of color is rightly encouraged in Imperative Six of
Vision 2020, diversity of thought, apparently, is not, as is evident in
the loss of a department vital to A&M's liberal arts program.
As Johnson said Thursday, "The bottom line is how we can serve
students." But actions need to match words, and the closing of a
department that has been at A&M since 1948 is not a service to
students. It is a disservice and an insult.
THE BATTALION
Editor in Chief
Managing Editor
Opinion Editor
editorial board
True Brown News Editor
Dallas Shipp Asst. News
George Deutsch
Melissa Sullivan
C.E. Walters
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 200 words or
less and include the author's name, class and phone number. The opinion editor
reserves the right to edit letters for length, style and accuracy. Letters may be submit
ted in person at 014 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters also may be
mailed to: 014 Reed McDonald, MS 1111, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
77843-1 1 1 1. Fax: (979) 845-2647 Email: mailcall@thebatt.com
Power of privilege
Cheney misusing executive privilege on energy policy
L ast Tuesday, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of
Columbia rejected a request by
Vice President Dick Cheney to block
the discovery process ordered by a
lower court in a lawsuit filed against
him by Judicial Watch, a conservative
government watchdog group, and the Sierra Club, an environmental
group. The lawsuit concerns the makeup of the National Energy
Policy Development Group over which Cheney presided. The
NEPDG generated the vastly industry-oriented energy legislation
that President George W. Bush presented to Congress in May 2001.
On the surface, the battle of NEPDG is about who was on the
task force. The government claims it was made up of only govern
ment officials, such as cabinet secretaries and agency and senior
presidential aides. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club maintain that
industry leaders such as Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of
Enron, and Thomas Kuhn, the president of the Edison Electric
Institute that represents investor-owned electric utilities, essentially
became de-facto members of the group. If these non-government
industry leaders were members, the Federal Advisory Committee
Act requires that the group’s activity be open to the public, which it
was not.
The lawsuit, however, embodies a much larger concern.
The real issue at stake in the lawsuit is what exactly the public is
entitled to know about its government and what the executive
branch is allowed to conceal.
The executive branch of government must be
able to conduct some of its business with a high
degree of confidentiality — especially if that busi
ness regards national security — but such confi
dentiality is not and must not be absolute. The peo
ple have a right to know when, how and why the
executive carries out its duties to accurately evalu
ate those decisions.
If specific factions are driving executive deci
sions while other interests are being shut out of the
process, the people have a right to know. Secrecy
regarding this energy policy, which in no way
involved national security, is ludicrous and highly
suspicious.
The people must know why the government does
things to trust their elected decision makers in a
republic. Secrecy is absolutely contrary to the dem
ocratic principles this nation was founded on. On
Aug. 4, 1822, James Madison wrote that “popular
Government, without proper information, or the
means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or
a Tragedy; or both. Knowledge will forever govern
ignorance.”
In secrecy lies danger and corruption, not any
thing remotely resembling an honest and open demo
cratic society.
In October 2002, District Court Judge Emmet
Sullivan ruled that Cheney must turn over records of
NEPDG activity or detail why it is privileged; Cheney
has refused to do either. Instead, he appealed the deci
sion to the Court of Appeals, a move the court called
extraordinary and drastic. He wanted the court to rule
that the information was privileged without having to
ever actually invoke executive privilege. To do so,
according to the court decision, would transform, “exec
utive privilege from a doctrine designed to protect presi
dential communications into virtual immunity from suit,” which the
court was unwilling to do.
Had it done so, the executive could do whatever it wanted with
out much oversight or accountability. It would have also increased
executive power at the expense of the other branches of govern
ment, according to a decision written by Sullivan early in July,
2002, regarding the matter. Suddenly, America would no longer be
a republic with three coequal branches of government; it would be
a dictatorship, or at the least, an oligarchy.
This concern about executive secrecy — and government secre
cy in general — is not a partisan issue. The Sierra Club and
Judicial Watch are opposites sides of the aisle on most issues; one
mostly endorses Democrats, while the other is a conservative
group. On this issue, however, they agree that people have the right
to know what private interests are driving the production of public
policies that will affect everyone.
If the Bush administration is going to continue to tout democra
cy around the world, it has to practice what it preaches. It is impos
sible to have rule by the people if government officials are withold
ing information that will have as drastic an impact on many aspects
of public life — the economy, the environment and health — as an
energy policy would have. People deserve to know the truth about
who exactly is making these decisions and why.
Jenelle Wilson is a senior
political science major.
Graphic by Grade Arenas
JENELLE WILSON
MAIL CALL
Closing of journalism
department 'outrageous'
Okay, that's it. I am completely and
utterly fed up with Texas A&M and its
administration. First, it was Bonfire,
but I'm not going to rehash that argu
ment here. Second was James
Reynold's vindictive decision to dis
band MSG Cepheid Variable and end
Aggiecon - an institution more than
34 years old - despite the fact that
the program paid for itself year in and
year out. But now, the asinine deci
sion to disband journalism at A&M is
so utterly offensive to me and every
other journalism graduate ever to pass
through A&M that words do not exist
to adequately convey my outrage.
I was a student when Dr. Charles
Self was lured from Alabama with the
grand - and ultimately empty -
promise of establishing a journalism
graduate school only to suffer repeat
ed budget and faculty cuts while other
liberal arts departments flourished.
Dr. Charles Johnson's bizarre claim
that A&M journalism students would
be better served by "specialization" in
a non-journalism major with the
equivalent of a journalism minor is a
slap in the face of every A&M journal
ism graduate. It is condescending and
offensive, and shows an utter and
complete disconnect with reality.
Johnson's statement that "A growing
body of evidence shows that many
prominent and award-winning jour
nalists came from varied academic
backgrounds other than journalism,"
puts him on par with the crowd insist
ing the U.S. lunar landings were faked
by Hollywood. For Johnson to attempt
to bully the existing faculty by ordering
them to keep this development secret
from former students flies in the face
of everything A&M stands for and
should not be tolerated.
No matter how hard A&M tries, there
is absolutely no way to make a silk
purse out of this sow's ear. Loren
Steffy is absolutely correct when he
says no employer will seriously con
sider A&M grads for journalism posi
tions in the future. The competition
and demands are simply too high to
go with a job candidate from a school
where journalism is relegated to an
afterthought.
And in all honesty, since when is
high enrollment in a program consid
ered a negative? Instead of pumping
untold millions into that dying beast
known as petroleum engineering,
A&M should join the 21st century and
fund the programs students actually
want and need.
This decision, I'm afraid, will have
long-reaching ramifications that A&M
is not considering. As a 10-year veter
an of newspaper journalism, I can say
without any hesitation that school
affiliation has a tremendous impact on
story balance and story prominence in
any of our communicative media. With
A&M journalism graduates in positions
of influence, A&M's interests are pro
tected and promoted.
This shortsighted decision will
remove A&M journalists from that
equation in years to come. The impact
will be subtle at first, but A&M will
most definitely suffer for it.
I know I am not a major donor to
the University, but that has been the
result of inability as opposed to desire
(another reason, I'm sure, journalism
was deemed expendable).
But no more. The desire has effec
tively been killed.
Over the past few years, A&M has
systematically disbanded and
destroyed all of my connections with
the University. Because of that, I can
only assume that A&M does not con
sider me a worthy member of the
A&M family.
So be it. I will never donate another
dime to Texas A&M University. I am
saving this letter, and in the future,
when I am contacted by the
Association or other arm of the
University requesting money, I shall
happily print out another copy of this
missive for their edification.
Jayme Blaschke
Class of 1992
Diversity necessary for
a quality education
In response to Michael Ward's July
10 column:
In his July 10 opinion article
"Affirmative action and the multi-eth
nic elite," Michael Ward displays an
embarrassing interpretation of
American history when stating that "if
diversity is so necessary for a quality
education, as the Supreme Court
suggests, how does one explain the
preeminence of the Ivy League col
leges?"
He then suggests that since the Ivy
League schools were the preeminent
institutions for years without any
minority enrollment, that diversity is
not necessary for a quality education.
I'll first point out that the Ivy
League schools were the nation's
first universities, so they largely
became the preeminent institutions
of higher learning because there
were no other schools with which to
compete.
I'd also suggest that no institution
founded today on the principles of
only letting in "the sons of wealthy
white men" would ever rise to pre
eminence.
I would argue that even here at
Texas A&M, our University has done
nothing but improve its academic
and public reputation since first
allowing women to enroll in 1963
and admitting the first minority stu
dent in 1964.
These were all attempts to achieve
"diversity" and current efforts toward
that goal are only an extension of
that longstanding goal of having a
student body better representative of
the public at large.
Many critics of affirmative action
point out the unfairness of favoritism
in the selection process. However, a
much longer-standing type of prefer
ence involves the one favoring chil
dren of alumni.
A Wall Street Journal article (Daniel
Golden, Jan. 15, 2003) highlights
how much universities favor children
of past or prospective donors.
Duke University, for one, annually
accepts 100 to 125 underqualified
applicants due to family wealth or
connections. Harvard accepts 40 per
cent of legacy applicants, compared
to only 11 percent of overall appli
cants.
This trend is common throughout
the nation's elite universities, and it
disproportionately favors white appli
cants. At the University of Virginia, for
example, 91 percent of legacy appli
cants accepted are white, and only
1.6 percent black, 1.6 percent Asian,
or 0.5 percent Hispanic.
Such legacy preferences do noth
ing to advance the notion of fairness
or merit. Opponents of affirmative
action might consider this when
voicing their outrage over the ridicu
lous notion of levelling out the play
ing field.
Robert A. Powell
Graduate Student
Diversity more important
now than in years past
In response to Michael Ward's July
10 column:
Two hundred fifty years ago, imperi
alistic nations plundered colonies,
women had no rights and slaves still
existed.
The argument that because Ivy
League schools rose to prominence
without diversity in the last 250
years and therefore diversity has no
educational value is very misin
formed.
The political and social environment
of the world has changed. Diversity in
colleges may not have been impor
tant in 1743, when the majority of
people in the United States did not
even have access to primary or sec
ondary schools, but surely, that has
changed.
The world is not a place where the
only opinions that matter come from
white men.
Business and governments that
matter exist all over the world and are
run by women and men of many eth
nic variations.
By denying the fact that having peo
ple who have insight into these cul
tures is an asset to the United States,
we are limiting one of our country's
best resources.
By having diversity in the class
rooms, people learn how to interact
with people of different ethnicities
and genders. And as Sandra Day
O'Connor said, "break down stereo
types" and "enable (students) to bet
ter understand people of different
races."
Anu Ratnayake
Class of 2006