SDSU Layoffs

Your (Aug. 13) editorial on San Diego State University President Thomas B. Day’s callous and inept handling of the budget crisis marches right up to the logical conclusion--and then blinks.

Pointing to Day’s turnaround on his decision to make unprecedented slashes of tenured faculty, you ask, “But if there was a way to balance the university’s books without firing almost 150 full-time professors and canceling hundreds of classes, why wasn’t it the first option, rather than the last?”

Why indeed?

You go on to oppose Day’s ouster from the presidency on the grounds that, even with his “credibility tarnished,” his reputed expertise as an administrator might somehow be useful during the next round of budget decisions. It is hard to see how.

Signaling in advance a willingness to surrender what is essential to a university in order to preserve its athletic teams, administrators and physical plant seems a dubious stratagem at best.

So long as Day remains as the SDSU president, he also tarnishes the credibility of an institution long-regarded as the best in the California state university system.

He should have the good grace to resign. Failing that, it is the inescapable responsibility of the system’s board of trustees to remove him.

WILLIAM CHEEK, San Diego