The regents’ power grab

After reading and re-reading the gauntlet that was thrown down by Regent Katie Mulholland: “… We honor the shared governance of the university faculty and staff, BUT shared governance is really different from shared decision-making,” I am flabbergasted. My translation of her comment is thus: Thanks for sharing, kids, now get back to your lecture halls and labs and let the adults get on with our (Republican) agenda of eviscerating the university system.

If this is not seen as a call to arms to all “stakeholders” who value our universities, then what will it take? It is clear that “making nice” will not empower the people who make our institutes of higher learning the jewels that they are when there is no place at the table for them (or any of us) to affect policy decisions.

It is time to get off our knees and be radical: think union, walk-outs, sit-ins, boycotts, strikes. This power grab is an affront to all citizens of Iowa. United we stand, divided we lose the right to have a voice in the direction of our treasured institutes of higher learning. The corporatization of the university has gone far enough.

D. S. Kaufman

Racist double standard in police protection

  Living off-campus for the first time, having evening classes several times a week, and well-aware of the risks that come with being a girl walking on her own at night, I started out this school year very nervous about walking home. I was relieved to see the police cars making frequent rounds on the blocks between campus and my apartment every night — if someone were to assault me, I thought, help would be close by. But the other day, when I told a friend of mine about my relief at the police presence, she gave me a strange, almost skeptical look.

     It then hit me: My friend is black. And earlier that day, she had told me about the many times that the Iowa City and campus police have not been on her side. Just the other night, she’d been at a party at Public Space One, and the police security (that the partygoers had been forced to pay for in order to have the event, for no apparent reason) refused to allow her and her friends to re-enter the building after they’d stepped outside for some fresh air. The party was not loud, and the partygoers were not drinking illegally or excessively, but they were treated like troublemakers and told to go home. The partygoers were all black. While I see the police as a force that will help and protect me, when my friend walks home alone at night, she has no reason to believe that the police will help her — if she goes to them for help with an assault, they might even arrest her. It saddens me that this racist double standard, which has caused the deaths of so many black youths in the past year, exists in my beloved Iowa City.

Sophie Katz

We should be concerned about local surveillance, not government surveillance

We need to ban local mini drones that endanger our safety, privacy, and security instead of worrying about government surveillance. Drones with cameras and recording devices are a bigger threat now than government surveillance devices. These over-the-counter flying tech devices are an immediate danger to us. If they were not a threat to us, NYC, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia would not have banned these remote-control drones prior to the pope’s arrival. It was for the safety, security, and privacy of all.

One example of a recent surveillance violation; I was at Lake STET reading and watching people fishing. Two women and a man drove up and parked next to me. The man launched a remote-controlled drone with a camera. One of the women “posed” for the remote drone camera as it buzzed around her. Then the man directed the drone to buzz around where I was sitting. At that time I felt I was subject to surveillance and that my privacy, security, and safety were in jeopardy. What did they record on their drone camera?

Maybe Edward Snowden can help us prevent this immediate threat to us if we can’t.

Annamarie Marcalus