LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

UM Mock Trial Organization

I find it disheartening that the Mock Trial Organization has been recently neglected in The Hurricane. The Mock Trial Organization is a club that not only upholds, but also helps, to build the academic reputation of the University of Miami. Last week, the club sent two teams to the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Southeastern United States Regional Tournament in Tallahassee, with much success. Melody Manning and Don Donelson each received a Best Attorney award, while Katie Onachila went home with a Best Witness award. One of our teams tied for third place and for the third straight year earned a bid to the National Tournament where they will compete against top schools such Yale, Dartmouth, Berkeley, Stanford and more. The other team earned the highly coveted Spirit of AMTA award given to the team that shows the most professionalism at the tournament. I cannot comprehend why, in the March 4 issue of The Hurricane, this information was ignored. If there is enough room to include an article about a barbecue at one of our rival schools, there should be enough room to report on the great accomplishments of a student organization here at UM. All of our teams devote a great deal of time and effort into Mock Trial, and they all deserve to be recognized. I hope that in the future, The Hurricane will lean more towards covering the substantial achievements of its own students.

Alissa McElhone

Mock Trial Treasurer

Re: “Greeks and non-Greeks involved in Trojan War,” 3/8

There seemed to be a lot of negative opinions toward the Greek community in the March 8 column of The Hurricane. Jovanni Bello’s piece called Greeks and non-Greeks involved in Trojan War was incredibly judgmental. He grouped all Greek students into a narrow stereotype of being elite and unfriendly to non-Greek students.

I already informed Mr. Bello that I found his article to be inappropriate. Surely, stereotyping all Greeks is equally as unjustified as making a blatantly racial or anti-Semitic or other type of ignorant generalization.

In addition, the editorial, entitled “Greeks force charity” practically made me cry. Many Greek organizations do not hold large philanthropic events like most of them preach about during recruitment. But my sorority, Delta Delta Delta, raised more than $30,000 in our annual golf tournament this last October. It is unfair to blame Greeks for giving their money and blood (literally) during Greek Week. Although I agree that the intentions were not directed towards helping people, and was, in fact, geared more towards winning, it does not negate previously successful philanthropic endeavors.

Sure Greek Week made $19,000 this year, which far surpasses that of last year-but our organization alone made over $30,000 last fall. Obviously something is wrong with some Greek organizations, but again, let’s not throw all Greek students into one large stereotype.

The media and entertainment industries are always against Greek organizations. We have to constantly defend our organizations-our ideals, our friends and the things we work incredibly hard towards. Your newspaper portrays our endeavors as a joke. The reason people in Greek organizations give into the stereotype is because it is so omnipresent, from books like Pledged to movies like Animal House, we must always be on the defense.

Reading about how all Greek students are snobby elitists gets old…and it gives the ones who do act that way all the more reason to maintain that attitude.

I think you are telling only one side of the story.

Elyse Gibson

Student