Terms of engagement in the fight against hate
"To ensure that the truth ran Ix- told, tve hare to allow a wide margin of error, sometimes suf-feriiif- the e.\i)ression ofridieii-loiis or eien repugnant ideas in tlie certainty that, if thoroufihly discussed, had i<leas will fall hy the icayside and fiood ones re-nuiin."
- ('anadiiui psychologist Dont'ii Kiniur.i to the IfWIJ C-oii-vocalion ceremony at Simon I'Vascr I'niversily.
We don't know whether Doreen Kimura had Doug Collins or Howai-d St<»m in mind wh(>n she made the remarks alK)ve. Mr. (^)llins' repugnant theories on the Hol(K'ausl were ruled anti-Semitic, hut not hatt^-("ul hy a U.C. Human KighUsTri-hunal. His views can apjK'ar in print. Meanwhile Mr. Stt>rn, a .Jewish New York radio pei-son-ality, is pers<»ia non f>rata on Canadian radio hecauseofhis ridiculous remarks about French -Canadians.
Mr. Collins and Mr. Stern make strange Ix^df'ellows. Our gov<'nuuent mindei-s can't stH>m to figure out who or what we .should li.sten to or ix>ad. Is theiv a (li(Terence between heaping ridicule on French-t^anadians or Jew.s'.'
We don't think so. No one likes to face public ridicule for their Iwliefs, skin color, sexual orientation, etc. etc. The questions is, who will pn)tect us i'mm such ridicule".' Is it a customs officer who baix'ly reads a book a \-ear, a lawyer whose piX)fession, to a large extent, shuns the media? Mow about dentist-s, uni-vei-sity pn)fe.ssoi-s, [xiliticians or car mechanics'.'
How about Peter Speck and '\\m Hen.shaw, tlie publisher and editor i^'six-ctively of the North Shoiv News? Wasn't it their job to say that they didn't want Mr. Collins to use their newspaper to attack their readers? Perhaps visions of advertisers' dollars clouded their judgment, or jxm-haps tliey agtvo witli Mr. Collins anti-St^mitic rant&.
We think Ms. Kimura may have the key to the riddle that tix- n.C. Human Wghts Tribunal and all the politicians and lawyers and bureaucrats couldn't .solve. Ix't's engage the I3oug Collins of the world on a differ-
ent, moi-e diixKrl level. Ix't's engage them in discussion of the facts of the Hohx-aust. It would Ix' no contest.
I x-'t's engage tlie Peter Six-cks in the kind of discu.ssion that they can understand. A concerted effort to [xm-suade advertisers and readers to abandon the North Shore News would surely have driven Mr. ("ollins into retirement yeare earlier.
Ix-'t's encourage some of our leaders to assume more i"es|X)n-sibility. Tlie chain of command at the North Shore Newn leads eventually to the office of David Hadler, senior manager of Hollinger Inc. There aren't many publishers in the Hollinger chain who arc foolhardy enough to ignore Mr. liadler.
Althougli some may think tiie decision appalling, tliere is some good that has come out of this. Mr. Speck says the hearing will have a "chilling effect on news media across Canada." If that means that Mr. Sixjck and Mr. Kenshaw become unwilling to mn anti-Semitic hate literatuit! then the hearings will have .sei-ved a punxise.
However, ix^lying solely on unenforceable laws to protect us from hate-mongers would bt> a mistake. '.
Letter
Methodology slammed
Editor
I am writing in response to the article "High Marks for High School" as printed in your Oct 31, 1997 issue. The methodology used by Peter Cowley to compare schools does not result in a meaningful comparison of the work of students in Vancouver's high schools. His assumption that all Grade 12 students should take all subjects is naive and, quite honestly, impossible.
A school that offers opportunities in many languages gives students many options, and to tliink that a student could take iill of tliese would show a lack of understanding of what a student is actually able to fit into a timetable. This is also true in Uie humanities when a school offere a wide variety of courses, including such options as FInglish liU^rature, creative writing, ge-ognqihy, histoiy, and European history advanced placement, likewise, for a student to be able to study all three sciences, physics, chemisti-y and biology, limits their other course selections. Students may also be wishing to take calculus advanced
placement or even preparing to write the first year UBC math coui-se while still in Grade 12. In other words, students make choices based on their interests and aspirations for university admissions. Therefore to use a participation rate as a comparison of performance is absolutely without basis.
I also query comparing schools with very few graduating students (under 10) with schools
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who may have up to a few hundred graduates. A meaningful activity for schools would be to take a look at what their graduates arc doing four years after gi-aduating from high school. I agree witb Mrs. Reisa Schwartzman, who was quoted in the article of Oct. 31, when she said that excellence in education requires accessibility to a variety of high school courses and experiences. Our students, and those of most high schools, are encouraged and empowered to choose their courses based on their interests and their plans for their future. I encourage parents who, with their son or daughter, are looking at which high school to attend, to I   look beyond the exam aver-I' ages, and to really examine tlie daily life of the students within a school.
Gail Ruddy Head of School, York House School Vancouver
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