To the editor:

Last week’s guest column (“Athletics injure Yale’s academic purpose” 10/10) touches a question that applies to every applicant to Yale. Because of limited space, whether recruited or not, each student who gets accepted affects the decision for the next one.

From reading the opinions this past week, I would like to ask, “What’s Yale’s vision for its students?” Blau supporters stress education. Athlete supporters stress diversity. Everyone would probably agree that each side deserves some merit. So the real question is, “What’s more important, education or diversity?” I would have to say that both are equal. We can’t be solely educated and expect to thrive in this multi-cultural, post-modern world. At the same time, we can’t expect to become social leaders without understanding topics like the ethics of modern science.

Okay, so what? We can come back to the original question, “To recruit or not to recruit?” From my perspective, recruitment guarantees athletes the precious seats in the new upcoming class before other applicants are even considered. What does this say about Yale’s priorities? Is athletics that much more important than education? And if the argument to support this claim is for adding diversity to the incoming freshmen class, then why not recruit the greatest singers? Or how about the science buffs who published articles in science journals?

The fact of the matter is that there are thousands of students at Yale who enter with awesome talents whether it be sports, the arts or academics. Recruitment favors one discipline over others and I don’t agree that athleticism should be considered better for adding diversity to Yale. I propose that rather than recruiting athletes, the admissions committee should consider them with everyone else, but grant bias toward those who would add more diversity, athletic or not.ÊIsn’t diversity what we said we wanted?

Steve Sauk ’04

October 14, 2003