Expulsion Should Be Part of Discussion

In all the discussion about college binge drinking (“Finding Good in ‘Normal,”’ June 12), to my knowledge none of the “concerned” at any of the colleges or universities has ever mentioned the “E” word: expulsion. If a student is convicted of underage drinking, DUI, drunk and disorderly, etc., he or she should be expelled for a year and sent home to sober up and grow up.

Are public universities and colleges now forbidden from setting and enforcing any kind of rules concerning acceptable student conduct?

Ann Calhoun

Los Osos

To read on the same day about normative values advertising on college campuses and the Supreme Court ruling allowing the Good News Christian clubs to occupy public school space (“Justices Allow Church Club to Meet in School”) suggests a cultural synergy. Since the goal in both cases is to create docile consumers of “good” values through social coercion, their strategies would seem to parallel those of ad campaigns for consumer goods like fast-food hamburgers or sneakers. An authority tells the young to eat it, wear it or believe it in the name of peer acceptance and social cohesion.

Faith-based efforts to indoctrinate elementary school children at taxpayer expense are bad enough, but one would expect secular college students to be less susceptible to being conned by self-justifying research questions and official pronouncements about true campus behavior. These are difficult times to be a child who does not follow the party line, as the culture marches backward to the controlling fantasies of the 1950s.

Paul Zelevansky

Beverly Hills