Letters to the Editor

The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from University students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. All letters must include the writer's name, phone number and school year or University affiliation. The Daily will not print any letter that cannot be verified. Ad hominem attacks will not be tolerated.

Letters should be kept to approximately 300 words. The Michigan Daily reserves the right to edit for length, clarity and accuracy. Longer "viewpoints" may be arranged with an editor. Letters will be run according to order received and the amount of space available.

Letters should be sent over e-mail to daily.letters@umich.edu or mailed to the Daily at 420 Maynard St. Editors can be reached at 764-0552 or by sending e-mail to the above address. Letters e-mailed to the Daily will be given priority over those dropped off in person or sent via the U.S. Postal Service.

The right to vote is bestowed on citizens by state legislatures

To the Daily:

Obviously, the authors of the editorial "Election 2000 results in insult" did not actually take the time to read the Supreme Court opinions nor did enough research to realize that we as citizens of the United States do not have a Constitutional right to vote for the president of the United States (12/14/00).

According to the Supreme Court opinions, that honor is given to us by the individual state legislatures and can be taken away by those legislatures at any time for any reason.

I have read that the founders of the United States set up the electoral college with the intent of not letting the presidential election being decided by the masses, hence the electoral college.

As far as Gore winning the popular vote, the Supreme Court opinions stated that the voting process contains a statistical error of around 2 percent.

Being that the final popular vote tally was well within this margin error, statistically, either candidate could have won the popular vote.

I guess this brings the question, would you rather have had the Supreme Court decide the Constitutional validity of the way in which the votes were being considered, or would you rather have had the election decided by a game of five card stud or some other game of chance, as can happen in some states?

At the end of the day, the popular vote was a tie and the fact that we as a country peacefully designated a president elect shows how strong our system of government actually is.

Bryan Johnson

University alumnus

'U' correct to defend affirmative action

To the Daily:

It is extremely satisfying to see that the University of Michigan is taking such a determined and well documented defense of its multicultural admissions policy.

For those out-of-state students that think that this stance is not in their interest and only those in the "so-called" non-white minority, they should take another look at what the University is doing for all foreign citizens, including white Americans, who live outside the U.S.

All too many universities in western Europe exclude foreigners from equal treatment - that means U.S. whites as well. Perhaps the two applicants who filed suit against the University should apply to some universities over here.

It was a real wake up call for me as a white American to be regularly discriminated against in a university of a western European country that is well known for its reputation of tolerance.

At a very basic level the United States has much of it past and future success to thank for its ability to better tolerate its citizens and foreign multicultural visitors than far too many other countries.

What these two students have not realized is that they are providing fuel to the most racist and anti-American types of political groups which put all Blacks, Latinos and all Americans into the same boat of world second class citizens.

Cort Johns

Prof. of International Business The Netherlands