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Shapiro reaches wrong conclusion I am wondering if Ben Shapiro is feeling the teeniest twinge of guilt over his duplicitous presentation of my remarks on Mumia Abu-Jamal (“Effects of campus liberalism far-reaching,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint, Nov. 20). His quote totally misrepresents my position, and is in fact cobbled together from some of my statements and his personal construction. He presents my “far-reaching” comments as if I delivered them in the classroom, and himself as a frightened student suffering their onslaught. In fact, I have never mentioned Mumia Abu-Jamal in the classroom, and I made my statements to Shapiro in a series of telephone exchanges when he presented himself as a Daily Bruin columnist trying to make up his mind about the case. I don’t remember all my comments verbatim, but I insisted on two points: 1) that there were enough discrepancies in the case to warrant a new trial and 2) Mumia Abu-Jamal’s situation is a spectacular example of the problem of the disproportionate number of black males on death row throughout the country. Finally, I do not believe that he is “definitely” innocent; this is for a jury in a fresh trial to decide.

Albert Boime Professor Art history

University should facilitate more student voting After reading about next year’s political candidates for state offices (“Candidates are in for next year’s statewide election,” Daily Bruin, News, Nov. 19), I was surprised to see so many people running who I had never heard of before. The article said that 77 people are running from over seven different political parties. With so many candidates, we will probably be inundated with junk mail, phone calls and television ads telling us what these politicians stand for. Yet most students can’t even choose to support a candidate because the many students are not registered to vote. At UCLA, a student has more opportunities to apply for a credit card than to register to vote. On the university’s bulletin boards and in its shops, credit card applications abound. Rarely is this the case for voter registration forms. My point isn’t to eliminate credit card marketing, but instead to point out that this situation represents the lopsided nature of the values being communicated to students. It is of little surprise, then, that in such an environment, civic activities such as voting are valued so little. Who do I blame? UCLA and its administration must shoulder some of the blame. They have not fully exercised the Federal Higher Education Act, which asks that publicly funded colleges and universities make a “good faith effort” to supply incoming students with voter registration forms. I don’t know about you, but I have never received a voter registration form, nor have I ever been told where I can get one. The only place where I have ever been notified about a chance to register is by CALPIRG’s Youth Vote campaign, which is a student-led on-campus group not sponsored by the administration.

Mark Thornton First-year History