Simpson’s Visit to UCI Class

* Re “O.J. at UCI--Controversial Figure’s Visit Sparks Fuss” (June 8), I feel compelled to address the issue as a student in professor William Thompson’s class. I am disturbed at the response O.J. Simpson’s visit has spurred.

The seminar was designed to let students explore a variety of legal issues that the trials presented. One topic we discussed was whether trials should be televised and what effect media coverage has on the ability of a defendant to receive a fair trial. I can’t think of a more appropriate guest speaker than Simpson.

The class was equally divided among Simpson supporters and detractors. There were some students who, like me, are not particularly fond of the trials and the media circus that surrounded them.

To the parents who called and wrote the school saying that they would never send their children to UC Irvine because of this visit, I pity those children. A university education is designed to give the student the skills necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. To imply that we need to be protected from exposure to all of the facts is insulting. All students are welcome at UCI, even those that have lived sheltered lives due to their parents’ ignorance.

JASON LINI

Graduating Senior, UCI

* While Simpson’s recent visit to a social ecology seminar at UC Irvine may have cause a stir because of his notorious status, the entire campus was hardly in an “uproar.”

Cheers for Dean Dan Stokols’ defense of the Simpson visit in defense of the larger issue of academic freedom in the classroom, a principle that gets lost in journalistic sensationalism and the zeal to pillory Simpson. I can imagine inviting Simpson to speak in a course on the history of sports. And while I can imagine inviting a neo-Nazi to a course on exiles and emigres as a way of exposing the insane policies of Germany during the Second World War, I cannot imagine inviting a neo-Nazi to such a class as a way of fairly representing Hitler’s views. Academic courses can take a point of view without indoctrinating students. The classroom is not a TV or radio network subject to the equal-time policy for political parties.

DICKRAN TASHJIAN

Professor of Art History

UC Irvine