Ohio State’s shameful backtracking
Re “Excellence will be my unwavering focus as Ohio State president,” May 10: You, Ohio State University, are indeed “our university” as our new President Ravi Bellamkonda wishes us to reference it in his recent guest column.
Between my wife and I, we have attained four degrees, years of staff and faculty tenure, season tickets galore and perpetual adjacent residence. We bleed scarlet and gray. We really care. OSU matters.
We assume our university with its vast resources seeks excellence in all facets of its mission and feel great pride in watching its steady growth. That is in all but one facet, community engagement, where we have watched shameful backtracking by the previous administration.
OSU is not and cannot strive to be the “finest public university in the country” until we again commit resources to our sacred values especially now in these times academic free speech and the inclusion of all our diverse citizens in our sprawling university program writ large.
Writing free speech in chalk on sidewalks is honorable everywhere except, it seems, on our campus. Speaking with your presence on campus beyond a particular hour is as well. Giving a leg up in our highly competitive system to those who lack a leg to stand on is what we would naturally do to strengthen our economy and community, until now.
No, we cannot be the “finest” or even very good until we shine a new bright light on living up to our sacred values and building true community.
Randal Morrison, Columbus
Derrow has his own facts
Re “The real culprits behind Spirit’s death are blaming Trump,” May 10: Is Philip Derrow just unaware of facts or is he pushing political spin? He laments critics blaming President Donald Trump while simultaneously blaming the Biden administration’s regulatory denial of Spirit’s merger with JetBlue.
While Trump’s war with Iran leading to higher jet fuel prices and the Biden ruling didn’t help, he conveniently omits Spirit’s long history of mismanagement and its deep financial problems, not to mention its reputation for poor customer service. Derrow is only too eager to choose his own selected “facts” as long as it supports his spin.Susan B. West, Athens
Property tax problem must be fixed
Re “Schools, cities, and towns will collapse if property taxes are killed,” May 10: The former Ohio budget directors tried to dismiss the possible repeal of the property taxes in Ohio as reckless.
One of the reasons given is that property taxes are almost half of all taxes collected.
This is the first big error.
The state should not put so much of the local funding burden on property owners, while whittling down income taxes for the wealthy. Just doubling the sales (5.75% to 11.5%) and income taxes (2.75% to 5.5%) would more than make up the loss from property taxes. In fact, you could get away with a 10% sales tax and make wealthy individuals pay a 7.5 % income tax and keep the same 2.75% tax on the first $100,000 of income for all.
The second reason given was that the proposed constitutional amendment doesn’t have a prescription to remedy the loss of property taxes, however, none of the former budget directors could seem to agree on a fix, either. This part is the scary part. It seems our politicians have no will to fix our problems with the property tax since their wealthy donors will have to foot some of the bill in rolling back income tax reductions.
Welcome to Ohio.
If you are voting in November, hold your elected officials accountable and vote for the ones who have the will to fix the issues we have with property taxes. Of course it may be too late for this, unless they wait until 2027 to get enough signatures for the ballot.
The current fixes from the General Assembly are too little and are still not working.
Scott Carter, Marysville
The ‘rhythm method’ worked so well
Thank you very much for reprinting the Detroit Free Press’ column, “New Trump rules aim to get women off birth control,” May 8.
I knew nothing about the new Title X program rules pushing women to get off contraceptives and instead rely on “natural” birth control methods. Oh yeah, ‘cuz the rhythm method worked so well. Ha!
All part of Project 2025 to drag women back to the Dark Ages via quiet under-the-radar rules, to when we and people of color were the property of White men, especially propertied White men.
Please follow up on this reporting with information on whatever any groups are doing to fight this.
Samantha Willow, Westerville
School vouchers aren’t the problem
As a public school teacher, I’ll start with this: I don’t actually have a problem with school choice.
The idea that you should decide how to spend your tax dollars makes sense to me. Yes, even for parents who intended to send their child to private school regardless.
The problem is with who is allowed to benefit from school choice.
The fact is that private schools are given significant discretion when it comes to who and who not to admit. They’re not required to provide the same level of support services for students with learning disabilities or behavioral struggles – arguably the ones who need it most.
The two gubernatorial candidates were recently asked about education solutions and gave very predictable answers: Acton wants to give more funding to public schools and Ramaswamy supports voucher programs.
Personally, I don’t think either solution gets at the heart of the struggles of our education system, but that’s a discussion for another time.
We must expect clear positions from our gubernatorial candidates on this issue: Should private schools be held to the same standard as public schools when it comes to providing support for struggling students, and if not, how do we avoid a segregated system that allows otherwise capable students to achieve at private schools and leaves struggling students behind?
Hunter Webster, Newark
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: We’re alumni. Ohio State is neither ‘the “finest’ or even a ‘very good’ university| Letters
Reporting by Letters to the Editor, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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