'Vindicates' 

Editor:

"Regrettably Deficient," the title of Thadeus Greenson's article in the Aug. 1 NCJ taken from the report by the OIR Group, the independent Eureka police oversight group, regarding the Cal Poly Humboldt's administration's heavy-handed response to the students who wanted Cal Poly to divest from involvement with Israel as it carries out what the International Court of Justice called "plausible genocide" of Palestinians in Gaza, should be applied as well to the politicians and others who took out an ad in the June 6 NCJ praising Cal Poly President Tom Jackson Jr.'s crackdown as "doing a great job."

I call this group the "Down with Graffiti, Up with Genocide Gang." It is headed up by Rex Bohn and Michelle Bushnell (Humboldt County supervisors), Tami Trent (mayor of Fortuna), William Honsal (Humboldt County's sheriff), Chris Howard (a Del Norte County supervisor) and Ronald Rowland (a retired judge) and a rag-tag posse of "alumni, donors, community members and staff." These law-and-order advocates said, "any professors or students that caused damage to the university should be held accountable and all who caused damage should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law!"

As it turns out the OIR Group's assessment vindicates the students' actions as being initially peaceful and only becoming confrontational after the university called in the police. It also vindicates the "My Word" in the May 23 Times-Standard wherein I wrote that, "I visited the campus during the sit-in of Siemens Hall, and found the protest to be peaceful and contained to the area immediately around Siemens Hall. The rest of the campus — 99 percent — was undisturbed and had no student protest presence. I say this to show why I think President Jackson's decision to not negotiate with the students and instead to call in the police and shut down the campus was unnecessary and inflammatory."

In the wake of his anti-democratic action — along with Chief of Staff Mark Johnson's lies — President Jackson is no longer at the helm of Cal Poly Humboldt. Perhaps the same fate should be visited upon the "Down with Graffiti, Up with Genocide Gang."

Robin M. Donald, Fortuna