Note to readers:

After the Daily finished speaking with Fern Kupfer (see page four), she said, of course, she did not want us to run the letter.

She added that if we did run the letter, we should run the entire letter, but not the part about the racist comment, which she denied uttering. The Daily agreed the racist comment might be libelous, so it was removed.

In addition, the Daily cut the paragraph which happened to have the word “malevolent,” out of space considerations. The paragraph was chosen only because it was the least informative compared to the rest of the letter.

As the offending party described in Shirley Keller’s letter, I’m writing to take issue with the Daily — not for printing the letter itself — but for printing such a sanitized and edited version. The Daily was kind enough to call me at home to read me a letter that the editor himself found “disturbing.”

In THAT letter — aside from calling me “malevolent” and holding forth about the damage I was personally responsible for at this university — the writer stated that I began the first class with a racial invective. “Is this true?” the Daily wanted to know. “Well, gee,” I said. “That’s not the way I usually open up the first day …”

I offered to give the Daily my class list to check out Keller’s accusations. I intimated that I thought some of the letter to be libelous. I added that I did not think it the obligation of a free press to print the inflammatory rhetoric of everyone who was functional enough to type.

What the Daily published, then, was an edited (and considerably tamer) version of Keller’s letter. This done WITHOUT following the first class with a racial invective.This done WITHOUT following theDaily’s own editorial policy of “major changes will be denoted by brackets.”

Shirley Keller is very, very angry — this is true. I just find it difficult to believe that after sitting in on half of one of my creative writing classes, she can be so very, very angry at me. I think the Daily was irresponsible in printing her letter. More irresponsible in the abridgment whose purpose was not merely to save space.

As an added note: despite Ms. Keller’s assertions, most of my classes are NOT devoted subjects of “depravity, weapons of mass destructions, psychotic ravings, death and sexual perversion.” Just wanted to warn anyone who was signing up for something wild — they’re bound to be disappointed. Mostly, we just talk about writing.

Fern Kupfer

Associated Professor

English