I am not writing to protest the editorial scars left on my comment entitled “Expediency” (Oct. 22), but to note in haste that since I wrote that piece some time back, another respectable argument about supporting the naming of Catt Hall has been published by the Iowa State Daily.

Regan D. Waller’s letter “Acknowledging the good and the bad” (Oct. 20) would also get a decent grade from me. In acknowledging the reality of the pain caused by a dismissive attitude toward expressions of racism, she earns the right to say, “Let’s get past it.”

Unlike the “Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner” argument, which dismisses, and the “Studenski” parody, which derides the seriousness of the pain inflicted on others in the name of expediency, bearing witness and owning the seriousness of the damage done is an honorable rhetorical move.

Virginia Allen

Associate professor

English