To the Editor:

The Yale Office of New Haven and State Affairs was a recent subject of a completely false story (“Yale’s inner-city blues (make me wanna holler),” 2/11) by one of your columnists which, with cartoon, took up nearly a half page of your publication. I write to set the record straight though, as usual in these matters, the calumny has gotten far more attention than will this letter. Quoting anonymous sources to create a sensational but completely inaccurate tale, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson writes that we exercised editorial control over the content and placement of news stories in local publications. This is a total fabrication and Schneider-Mayerson was told by me prior to publication that his information was just plain wrong. Schneider-Mayerson characterizes the activity he attributes to us, but which did not occur, as “sordid and unethical.” We leave it to the reader to determine to whom those adjectives should apply in this instance.

T. Reginald Solomon ’98

March 25, 2003

The writer is program director of the Yale Office of New Haven and State Affairs.