30 faculty sign anti-war letter to Bush

by Sam Seaver, Chronicle staff

pproximately 30 faculty members and librarians signed an anti-war resolution to be sent to President George W. Bush, Senators Edward Kennedy, John Kerry and U.S. Rep. John Olver at a March 11 meeting in the Lincoln Campus Center.

     Initiated by Faculty Senate secretary Ernest May and Ron Story, president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, and moderated by Political Science professor Jerry Mileur, the forum was held to discuss possible political action and to allow faculty members to express their opinions on the impending war with Iraq.

     Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies Ann Ferguson proposed the anti-war resolution from the faculty.

     "We faculty and librarians at the University of Massachusetts oppose the U.S. government's proposed war against Iraq as unnecessary and unjustified," the resolution began. Ferguson cited the recent passage of similar anti-war resolutions by faculty at Mount Holyoke and Hampshire colleges as further reasons for University faculty to take political action.

      "I am really impatient with the ambiguity of the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction' and with the media saying that U.S. soldiers will be protected and we will sustain little collateral damage," said associate professor of Communication Lisa Henderson. "We know from the Gulf War that there will be extensive damage and that U.S. soldiers will not be protected. There were massive injuries to soldiers from exposure to chemical weapons and uranium that were not tabulated."

     "Despite what the media say, protesting does have an effect on our leaders," said Sociology professor Dan Clawson. "Furthermore, this war will cost the taxpayers of Massachusetts approximately $4.5 billion, which is equal to our current state deficit. So we have no money for education, but $4.5 billion to spend on this war." He added that France's threatened veto in the United Nations Security Council and Turkey's refusal to admit U.S. troops are further evidence of international opposition to the war.

     After a unanimous vote to send out the anti-war resolution, attendants discussed the possibility of e-mailing the resolution to absent faculty through the Massachusetts Society of Professors in order to gain additional support.