LETTER: Statesman has responsibility

Dear Editor,

In the opinion of The Statesman editors, certain professors whose first language is not English have an insufficient grasp of the language to teach at Utah State University. According to The Statesman, “there are situations in which the students [sic] education is being jeopardized,” and therefore foreign professors should “be able to speak English clearly, even if slowly, at a level students can understand” [The Utah Statesman, Jan. 18, Page 12].

We think it would be interesting to apply a similar set of “standarts” [The Utah Statesman, Jan. 18, Page 1], to the work undertaken by the editors of this newspaper. Do the editors not have a “responsability” , to promote the correct use of English as an example to those learning the language? Shouldn’t we all “ralley” , around this cause? Unfortunately, The Statesman “strangly” seems disinterested in applying these standarts to itself, only to “othe’s” .

With the Winter Olympics and the influx of thousands of non-English speakers imminent, and with Utah’s all-too-well-touted “values” on display to the world, is it really appropriate to apply our own flawed standarts to othe’s?

Robert Sidford and Lindsay Hasselbach