To the Daily:
DPS should treat all fans equally at the Big House
Perhaps the increase in citations, arrests and ejections at Michigan Stadium is not a result of “good weather and more games at 3:30 p.m.,” as Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Diane Brown indicated (Rowdiness on rise at Big House, 10/08/2007), but rather related to the increasingly pervasive attitude of many DPS officers who believe that students inside the stadium are not entitled to the same legal rights as others in the stadium.
During the recent home football game against Oregon, my roommate and I were ejected from the game for disorderly conduct, despite the fact neither of us had been drinking nor exhibiting any type of rowdy behavior. We were removed from the stadium, only because a group of heavily intoxicated girls (who showed up at the end of the first quarter) wanted our seats. Without verifying that we were in our ticketed seats and without talking to us or to any other members of our group, the officers escorted us out of the stadium. This was despite the fact that the drunken girls themselves recanted their earlier claims against us.
Sadly, DPS now defines disorderly conduct as two totally sober graduate students who arrive at the game 30 minutes before kickoff and subsequently cheer for Michigan from their assigned seats. Moreover, without explaining to us why we were removed from the stadium, DPS has continued to ignore all written correspondence and attempts to receive compensation for the tickets and a formal apology from the officers involved. Before believing the claim that “student rowdiness” is on the rise, remember that the surge in ejections could just be part of the larger trend of officials who eject students from sporting events without any reasonable suspicion, just cause and without any legal recourse.
Nicholas Douville
Rackham
Editorial misses reasoning behind Bush’s S-CHIP veto
I have serious objections to the Daily’s praise of S-CHIP, the children’s health care bill that President Bush recently vetoed (Taking care from a baby, 10/08/2007).
The fact that the Daily’s editorial board believes that the 61-cent tax hike on cigarettes won’t increase the deficit misses a more important point. Indeed, raising the federal cigarette tax will do something much worse: disproportionately increase the tax burden on low-income families. The Washington-based Tax Foundation estimates that the tax burden of the proposed hike will hit the lowest-earning 20 percent of households 37 times harder than if the revenue are raised through an income tax instead.
The unintended consequences of raising the cigarette tax are undeniable. High taxes are simply not the key to increasing revenue, and states will learn this lesson firsthand when 61 cents is piled on top of existing state cigarette taxes. Revenues will go down, and the tax burden for the poor will go up. All for the kids.
Jonny Slemrod
LSA sophomore