UNC and DEI
The author is a rising senior at UNC-CH and a member of the Affirmative Action Coalition.
Eliminating DEI is not a defense of UNC’s troubled history. It's an attempt to sink it and prevent it from resurfacing.
For 160 years, UNC has worked unequivocally for the success of white students. It has been implicitly so ever since. This has never been more evident as majority-white, majority-male boards divert DEI funds to campus police departments that violently suppress student dissent. .
In the decades-long struggle for freedom between people of color and the police, UNC chose the police. In a broader moral debate about what society must do to reflect on its past, the UNC has chosen denial.
Julian Taylor, Chapel Hill
Voter ID
Regarding “What I told the federal court about North Carolina's discriminatory voter ID law” (opinion, May 13):
I cannot agree more about the obstacles posed by new voter ID laws. I'm experiencing them with my 93 year old mother who moved from Illinois a few years ago. Once she became a resident, she briefly voted in North Carolina – until now.
Since she doesn't have a driver's license, I have jumped through numerous hurdles to get her a state ID appointment through the DMV. The only time I could book was for her three months from now, and I had to go through vital statistics to get her birth certificate and her marriage license. The cost was $108.
Voter ID laws are a bigger fraud than false reports about hundreds of dead people voting and others voting multiple times. What if my mother lives alone and she doesn't have the means to get into a car and doesn't know how to get the proper documentation or make an appointment at her DMV and she misses voting for the first time since 1948? It turns out.
Jerry Decker, Fukie Varina
abortion
Florida's six-week abortion ban went into effect this month, making North Carolina one of only two remaining states in the South where patients can receive an abortion beyond six weeks.
As a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, I understand what the continued attacks on bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom mean to my patients. We want to ensure that not only our own citizens, but also thousands of people who are forced to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest abortion clinic in much of the South, now North Carolina, have access to abortions. We must fight for our right to be protected.
In November, we hope North Carolinians will be motivated to vote for legislators and leaders who understand that politicians have no place in personal health care decisions. We cannot allow North Carolina to be added to the list of states with even more extreme prohibitions on access to essential health care.
Dr. Jenna Beckham, Durham
newton mask bill
Regarding “NC Lawmakers Consider Repealing Exceptions to Mask Law” (May 15):
The Unmasking Rioters and Criminals bill is a disaster for people who live with or care for medically vulnerable people or who pose a medical risk to themselves. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Buck Newton, says he doesn't intend the bill to affect “Grandmas at Walmart,” but is stopped by arrogant anti-maskers who insist it's illegal and remove their masks. It can be expected that such a request will be made. I don't expect the world to be the same as her 2020. Masks are considered a political statement and frankly I don't believe in people's common sense. If I were to confront this old lady, I would give her a card with Newton's contact information on it. They could ask him to interpret this ridiculous bill.
Cindy J. Diliberty, Hillsboro
downtown
A proposal (May 10) to revitalize four major blocks of Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh is tinkering around the edges rather than demonstrating a willingness to get more creative. Just because previous efforts to turn Fayetteville Street into a pedestrian mall failed, doesn't mean a better design can't be done. There are far more people living downtown now, and the idea of widening the sidewalks doesn't address the noise factor of cars just a few feet away. Imagine four blocks as a large plaza and imagine how that amount of open space could enliven a downtown core.
Stephen Jenks, Carrboro
