Marketplace of ideas includes different voices

TO THE EDITOR:

I am highly disappointed at the manner in which both The Daily Tar Heel as well as members of the campus community have responded to Student Congress' decision to fund Carolina Students for Life's large fall event.

While CSFL's display is receiving critique based on claims of its supposed divisive offensive and unproductive nature its critics are the ones producing hateful and harmful accusations founded on misunderstandings and personal biases.

By all means feel free to disagree with the display and its message but I would hope that we could all at least be civil to our fellow students.

The university setting is a marketplace of ideas; we are not only to learn from our professors in class but we should be learning from the challenges set forth by our peers as well.

I have stood with a display similar to the one CSFL is bringing and beg the point from my own experience that such displays actually do produce quite a bit of intelligent and compassionate dialogue amongst students and community members.

The Justice For All display challenges our notions of personhood and when human rights begin by showing the faces of abortion that generally go unseen.

I conversed with a multitude of people and engaged everything from the philosophical issues behind personhood to personal stories from women who had experienced abortion.

So when Justice For All comes please everyone put down your bullhorns have a real conversation and try to respectfully understand one another in the midst of disagreement.



Melanie Simpson

Senior

Carolina Students for Life President