Letter to the Editor 4/22 # 1

To the Editor,

In Wednesday’s article, “SempleFest Facebook… To the Editor,

In Wednesday’s article, “SempleFest Facebook Event Deleted,” city police Commander Kathryn Degler made a comment about Pitt students “thinking they own [Semple] street” and that the students are “visitors in our town.” I find these comments insulting and ignorant.

Degler is blatantly ignoring the huge and vital contributions to the city of Pittsburgh that the student community makes and is focusing solely on students as a bunch of rowdy yahoos who need to learn to keep it down for the good of the neighborhood. OK, so it’s true that SempleFest, in past years, has been an event closer to a riot than a party. But it’s not like throwing parties is all that students do.

I’d love to see Degler’s face if all the jobs that we “visitors” contribute to the city’s economy suddenly disappeared or were left vacant, or if all the businesses that depend on student dollars didn’t get any of that money anymore. And I don’t even have to mention the taxes that students pay — taxes that the city is all too eager to get more of, as Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s erstwhile Fair Share Act demonstrated. It’s still clear that the view city officials have toward students is simply one of tolerating “our” presence in “their” city, of students abusing and taking advantage of a system that would work better without them. Well, we’re not just visitors in your town. Students are a vital part of the community, and the police and city government shouldn’t think of us as second-class citizens who only cause trouble. That view is not only insulting to the inestimable contributions students make to the city, but it’s downright wrong as well.

Richard Brown

Pitt Alumnus

Class of 2009