Students and Faculty Got UCI to Budge on University House

The Dec. 20 article “UCI Sees Saving Birds as Natural Thing to Do” leads the public to believe that the university magnanimously decided to relocate its University House for the sake of the gnatcatcher.

What I would like to point out is that it took extreme pressure from both the students and the faculty to get the university to budge.

Until the graduate and undergraduate student governments took an active stand on this and alerted the faculty to the situation, the chancellor was not prepared to budge.

Your article makes university officials out to be fundamental environmentalists, when in fact they used their position as an autonomous entity of the state to bypass an environmental impact report.

The article indicates that the university decided to “relocate” the site. This entailed that the house be moved 60 feet. The article fails to point out that the students asked that the site be re-evaluated and that an alternative site be found.

The university’s decision was an act of appeasement. Nothing more. Why did the article not elaborate on why the vote to move the house only passed by a vote of 7 to 3?

I condemn your paper for failing to expose the whole truth and mislead the public in such a way, and applaud the faculty for taking a stand against the administration.

Along with the students, they fought the mighty university, along with all its espousing of openness and progressiveness, to a mighty and much worked for, appeasement.

TODD SCHUBERT, President, Associated Students, UC Irvine