‘Rigging the Admissions Game’

“Rigging the Admissions Game” by Adam Kirsch was illuminating and disturbing [Page 1, October 26, 2005]. I am a graduate of Cornell, class of 1970. I remember the words of my high school principal that only two students would get in, one boy, one girl, and only one would be Jewish. Alas, three boys and two girls were accepted and two of us were Jewish.

I wasn’t surprised by the description of the policies of the big three of the Ivy League back to the 1920s. Anti-Semitism was more overt in those times. The ability to use euphemisms to practice exclusionary admissions was vaguely reminiscent of the most extreme judges of human worthiness, the Nazis. I am not suggesting the Ivy League admissions officers were like the Nazis, but it shows how insidious the process can be when unwritten rules are the true measure. I like to think times have changed and I believe the number of Jewish students at Ivy League schools as well as Jewish presidents of those schools indicate that times have, indeed, changed.

Nevertheless, I will read Jerome Karabel’s “The Chosen” because practices similar to that exist in the business world as well as government procurement. History has been known to repeat itself.

STEVEN A. LUDSIN
East Hampton, N.Y.
Mr. Ludsin was a member of the original President’s Commission on the Holocaust and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

‘Good Sense on Guns’

Your editorial describing the gun industry immunity bill, passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday, as “a victory for proponents of sensible crime policy” was a stunning misstatement of both the motivation for this disgraceful legislation and its likely impact [“Good Sense on Guns,” October 21, 2005] .

The new law is a victory for corporations that profit from the suffering and deaths of thousands of Americans every year. Gun industry executives know the steps they could take to dramatically stem the flow of firearms into the black market where they are sold to criminals. They refuse to take these steps for one reason: greed.

Law enforcement records conclusively show that, in addition to the multi-billion dollar business of legal firearms sales, there is a huge network of illegal trafficking in arms that are diverted from the legal marketplace. Gun manufacturers know about the illegal market. They profit from it. And they could put an end to it if they chose to do so. In an opinion issued in NAACP v. Acusport, Inc., one of the many cases that would be barred by the unprecedented immunity bill, Federal Judge JackWeinstein stated:

“The evidence presented at trial demonstrated that defendants [gun manufacturers and distributors] are responsible for the creation of a public nuisance and could – voluntarily and through easily implemented changes in marketing and more discriminating control of the sales practices of those to whom they sell their guns – substantially reduce the harm occasioned by the diversion of guns to the illegal market …”

The gun industry immunity bill will prevent people inspired by the industry’s failure to stem the flow of guns into the illegal market from taking the legal steps that the NAACP and others have shown to be necessary to save lives and reduce gun violence.

Less than 1.5% of gun dealers supply 60% of the guns used in crimes. Our most effective levers to force the industry to cut off these dealers has now been eliminated by the gun lobby and its congressional lapdogs.

Finally, the immunity bill is about much more than gun control. It’s an attack on our civil justice system. This bill gives unprecedented protection from liability to one industry. How long will it be before lobbyists for other industries line the halls of Congress with their checkbooks to get protection from being held accountable for harm caused by their greed and negligence?

ERIC T. SCHNEIDERMAN
Mr. Schneiderman is a state senator representing the 31st Senatorial District, which includes parts of Manhattan and the Bronx.

‘Calling Charles Darwin’

Hillel Halkin’s attempt to conflate intelligent design (creationism) with Darwinian evolution, while amusing, is nonetheless entering a slippery slope [“Calling Charles Darwin,” Opinion, October 25, 2005].

There is no way these polar opposites can be reconciled, and it is dangerous to attempt it. Fundamental to intelligent design is the concept of purpose, teleology, which is totally rejected by science.

Humankind is not the ultimate end for which the universe exists but a stage in the evolution of a complex primate. Indeed, devolution to a simpler form is also a recognized scientific event in nature.

The poet may say,”from harmony to heavenly harmony – the diapason closing full in man,” but that is only a charming metaphor.

The proponents of intelligent design will latch onto any thing that seems to support their misologic doctrine. Rational thinking requires that only the truth, as best we can determine it, be promulgated and taught.

Darwinian evolution will remain paramount in scientific thought until and only until it can be disproved.

GOODWIN BREININ
Manhattan

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