share your feelings (see previous post)

Subject: resign

Dr. Luis Proenza [ proenza@uakron.edu ]
President
The University of Akron
Akron, Ohio

Dear Dr. Proenza,

After a jury found Charles Plinton Jr. not guilty of drug charges, your disciplinary board expelled him and forbade him from ever setting foot on the University of Akron campus for the rest of his life.

The rest of his life only lasted six months.

Beyond your resignation or prompt firing by the University, it is my greatest wish that some day, after a jury finds you innocent, those in positions of authority over you choose to destroy your dreams and the rest of your life.

When you contracted with the police to put felons among the bona fide students in the dorms, and when you approved the "fairness" of the disciplinary board, you probably thought no one would ever have the power to do something like this to you.

That is a very naive misperception of the world unsupported by actual experience. As you comfort yourself that this could only happen to a poor kid on scholarship, you might find the experience of astrophysicist Richard E. Berendzen particularly instructive.

Sincerely,

Robert Merkin

Northampton, Massachusetts