Cal State L.A. Publisher Fired

The article on campus censorship took me back to the beginning of the Cold War days at the University of Michigan in the late ‘40s. I worked as a reporter for the Michigan Daily, a prize-winning campus newspaper at that time. The University of Michigan president moved in the same way, at that time, to thwart the free expression of ideas on campus and in the press, although he espoused a belief in the rights of students to even “radical manifestations.”

Clearly nothing has changed, in that universities, and even the general news media, too often are toadies to the U.S. Administration in power.

In 1947 we were in the transition from the post-World War II euphoria about the death of fascism to the Cold War redirection of our fears against the Soviet Union.

It is sad to see academic freedom bearing the brunt of these attempts to strait jacket public opinion.

However, the transition taking place now is in a more optimistic direction--from Reaganism and the Cold War to a saner and more just world. Access to accurate and unfettered information has to take the place of the mass media Pablum, upon which the American people are forming their opinions now.

My salute to you, Joan Zyda, and the students at Cal State L.A. for your efforts on behalf of freedom of the press and the rights of students to a public forum.

ROSELVA UNGAR

Los Angeles