Mason’s response was disappointing

To the editor:

Compliments to The Gazette for its fine editorial over the art display at the University of Iowa. I was disappointed by UI President Sally Mason's and doctoral student Kayla Wheeler's comments.

Wheeler is 'outraged” by the display and thus demands the art professor be fired. Has Wheeler's education given her the notion that she should have freedom from others' exercise of free speech? Has the mono-political culture at Iowa fostered this attitude of 'I have a right to go through life and never be offended by someone's political opinion or the method used to express that opinion?”

Mason's response to this imbroglio is feckless. How refreshing it would have been had she said, 'A university should ideally be a place of intellectual ferment and that while some, myself included, may not agree with the message nor the means of conveying it, academic freedom needs to be respected.”

I am also disappointed in Serhat Tanyolacar. The method of conveying his message was original and thought provoking - characteristics of good art. It's sad he felt the need to prostrate himself before a sacred cow campus constituency. Artists are supposed to be true to their work - damn the political torpedoes.

Finally, I find this situation ironic. Right wingers have been banished from the faculty and right wing thought among students is so discouraged that the left has turned on itself much as it did during the French Revolution. As the great philosopher Yogi Berra said, 'It's deja vu all over again.”

Kurt Maas

Coggon