I am stunned by your assessment that the naming of a UT building for the Moffetts is now an "unmomentous issue." The campus has been in more of an uproar about this than any issue in recent memory. Over 3000 students signed petitions condemning the naming; student government passed a very strongly worded resolution against it, the Faculty Council passed a resolution in clear opposition, and 2/3rds of the life science faculty --the intellectuals whose work, reputations, and research is on the line -- have signed an additional petition calling for a name change. You call this an "unmomentous issue"?

It is equally distressing that your editorial justifies the embarrassment of naming a building for an infamous character by similar past actions at other universities. What kind of logic is this? The embarrassments of past elsewheres do not validate the indiscretions of the immediate present.

The Statesman might have had "enough already" but for many of us this issue is just beginning to come out in the open. The "bitter wrangling" about Freeport, Moffett, and the reputation of the University of Texas at Austin will not end until upper administrators pay full respect to student and faculty viewpoints, and until we see the dawning of environmental and social justice in West Papua.

Steven Feld,
Professor of Anthropology,
University of California, Santa Cruz