University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Reader Questions Ryan Explanation Of Gibson Issue

All concerned Cavalier basketball fans
have been forced to sit idly and watch the
Gibson controversy be buried in Athletic
Department red tape. It seemed that
bureaucratic inertia and Gibson's well-groomed
alumni support would more than
negate numerable grievances against a losing
coach, but how anyone can possibly stand
by and accept Pat Ryan's ridiculous
explanation is beyond me.

How can he possibly expect any
intelligent person to believe that "a
counting error" was responsible for Norman
Carmichael's selection as captain. With no
more than 15 players voting, how probable
is this explanation? Surely the knowledge
that he was playing without team support
hurt Norman's performance.

Secondly, how can he so lightly dismiss
Gibson's angry reprisal against Tony Kinn
and John English when all of the players
signed a list of grievances against their
estranged coach. Surely, no team in the
Conference would be so rash as to dismiss a
shooter of Kinn's ability and a defensive
ballplayer of English's caliber as "of no use
to a team" that has been anything but
scintillating.

I'm sure The Cavalier Daily can no longer
accept the half-truths of Gibson and his
supporters. Its about time serious research
be done and the whole true story about
Gibson finally be aired.

Explanation

Just for the record, the random poll such
as it was, concerning student attitudes
towards misrepresentation of age to obtain
alcohol, mentioned in the editorial of 14
May, was not the sole determinant in the
Committee's decision.

The conclusion was reached after
weighing many consideration, the poll being
one of them. Furthermore, the poll was
taken this past winter, not last fall; taken
under the auspices of the Committee, not
by the Committee itself; and the results
revealed that student opinion on the
question was just about evenly split.

Toward The Cellar

In following its policy of "reaching the
people," the Honor Committee has taken
one further step down the stairway to the
cellar. As the committee pathetically states,
it has no faith in the logic of the student
body at the University. Indeed, it has no
faith in the honor of the student body for
which it sets the policy. As of today,
"misrepresentation to a Dean" remains an
offense to the honor system, while "misrepresentation
of age to obtain alcoholic
beverages" is no longer a lie in our standard
of "honor." Cannot the committee understand
that it is against the law to sell
alcoholic beverages to anyone under the age
of twenty-one? Their most recent ruling
states that they are willing to turn their
backs on one's disregard for the law. Does
not the committee see that its purpose is to
set a standard to live up to - a policy of
Honor - not, as its recent actions suggest,
to accept a policy which is, in fact, dictated
a them by an irrational student morality?
The implication here is that the University
community is so decadent it cannot live up
to a code it has established for itself. As its
latest rulings verify, the Honor Committee is
a weak, compromising body which feels no
guilt at shirking its responsibility. With such
an attitude, the committee cannot hope to
establish a strict system of honor. Perhaps
tomorrow, the committee will see fit to
abolish the Honor Pledge, for how can such
a pledge "retain its credibility as an effective
force in our society?"

Killing Honor

Lying is lying is lying. But lying is
dishonorable only when the offense is
committed in Charlottesville or Albemarle
County: so says the Honor Committee. Now
the Committee has gone so far as to state
that the "moral sense of the current student
community" does not consider lying about
one's age in order to obtain liquor
dishonorable.

How far will the Committee go in this
destruction particulatim of the Honor
System? I can not believe that the majority
of the student community supports this
latest assault on the spirit of the Honor
System: there must be a resounding demand
for immediate reversal of the Committee's
latest decision, which can have only the
most devastating effect upon the "credibility"
of the Honor System.