COMMENTARY

Fighting to catch up

Washington — The rites of spring bring warmer weather, baseball and the time when women's annual earnings finally catch up to what men earned last year. Because full-time working women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar men earn, it takes them nearly 16 months to earn what men make in a year for doing the same work. For minority women, the wage gap is even larger, so black women don't catch up to white men until late May, and Hispanic women don't catch up until mid-September. Equal Pay Day is observed today.

COMMENTARY

Higher education cuts put strain on students

It is a rough time for everyone. Michigan has a struggling economy, which is evident to everyone, and with rising costs of attending public universities, how can we expect the economy to ever improve?

COMMENTARY

Money wasted in MSU court appeals

Since May 2006, The State News and MSU have engaged in a legal battle about the release of police records from a 2006 alleged assault.

COMMENTARY

Arming citizens is best way to prevent shootings

The tragedy that unfolded last week at Virginia Tech University has been blamed numerous times on lax gun control here in the United States.

COMMENTARY

Exasperated outrage

Years ago, when I was too young to appreciate it, I saw Sidney Lumet's 1976 classic "Network," and it had an impact on me. I saw Howard Beale, the rumpled, disaffected, disgruntled network news anchor, as a hero — someone who had finally sifted through enough of the world's crap and was tired of pretending everything was all right. He was "mad as hell" and he wasn't going to take it anymore.

COMMENTARY

SN video clip accurately portrays campus event

I thank you, The State News, for being there and recording the video you got with the article "YAF-sponsored event draws 5 arrests" (SN 4/20). The video shows what really happened, while the article tells another story.

COMMENTARY

Protesters were racially profiled at Simcox event

I am appalled at the reaction of both MSU police and administrators following the Chris Simcox event the evening of April 19.

COMMENTARY

Protest victimized Minuteman leader

It's all just a little bit of history repeating. In an event that somewhat mirrored the Dec. 1, 2006, Tom Tancredo debacle, protesters crashed a presentation put on by Chris Simcox, co-founder and president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps at Conrad Hall on Thursday. Much like Tancredo, Simcox was there to speak out against illegal immigration.

COMMENTARY

Guns should be allowed on university campuses

After the massacre at Virginia Tech University, I think MSU needs to seriously reconsider the rules on campus regarding weapons.

COMMENTARY

Don't blame gun laws for Virginia Tech shooting

The atrocious events surrounding Virginia Tech University are nothing short of appalling, but nothing more than a tragedy.

COMMENTARY

Firing of Imus not a First Amendment speech issue

Calling the firing of Don Imus as "an erosion of all our First Amendment rights," as Brian Began did in his letter "Risky precedent set for free speech in media" (SN 4/17), demonstrates a gross misinterpretation of the law.

COMMENTARY

Rising costs make college exclusive

As post-collegiate debt skyrockets, book prices rise exponentially and tuition rates grow with unchecked abandon, the makeup of those attending college is changing. They are getting richer. According to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, today's college freshmen are wealthier than they've been in the past 35 years.

COMMENTARY

Education makeover

How many of your professors know your name? It's a simple question that, for most students, elicits a number much smaller than the number of classes on their schedule.

COMMENTARY

More gun control is not way to prevent shootings

I am writing in response to the letter Mr. Brett Staron wrote, "Tragedy highlights gun control issues in U.S." (SN 4/18). He is among the first to call for a restriction of the Constitution.

COMMENTARY

Article's infobox oversimplified presentation

On April 13, I presented my undergraduate research project at the MSU Board of Trustees meeting. The presentation was entitled "Memoirs of Genocide: Polish Jewish boys and Southern Sudanese 'Lost Boys,' (Exploring the experiences and narratives of child survivors of mass violence)." In an infobox about the meeting, from "Trustees vote to lift housing prices" (SN 4/16), my presentation was said to have "compared the Holocaust to the Sudanese 'Lost Boys.'" This is simply incorrect. I'm not sure if this misrepresentation of my project was due to the reporter's misunderstanding, or a desire to simplify the description.

COMMENTARY

Professors should begin discussion about tragedy

In light of the horrific and tragic mass killings that occurred at Virginia Tech University on Monday, I am appalled by the lack of coverage not from the television media, not from The State News, but from our professors and faculty who serve as leaders and role models to me and my beloved fellow students. I felt betrayed as many professors did not adequately address something of such importance in the history of our nation. Today, I urge professors to take a few minutes to discuss the occurrences, share a moment of silence or speak words of comfort to us.

COMMENTARY

U.N. must act immediately in Darfur

After four years of conflict, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has finally dropped his objections to international assistance in Darfur. Darfur has been in contest since 2003 after rebels began attacking government targets.

COMMENTARY

The taboo struggle

They were scared of me. In my fake pearl necklace and high heels, I was suddenly a threat. After I let it slip at a recent job interview that I was a (gasp!) feminist, my prospective male bosses were shaking in their loafers.

COMMENTARY

Virginia Tech incident questions our own safety

I'm writing this hoping that it brings new questions to the table: I watched, along with all the other students in the nation, as the news broke of a fatal shooting taking place at Virginia Tech University.

COMMENTARY

Poison at the root

It may not have surprised some of you when we learned that MSU's Young Americans for Freedom was about to be listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, a civil rights organization dedicated to tracking the activity of such groups across the nation. We have all seen the hateful and bigoted rhetoric MSU's YAF spews forth on a daily basis.