On Tuesday, April 1 UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison e-mailed the UC student body to explain how the University police force is dealing with the tree sitters. (Click here to read the full letter). April Fools joke? Hardly. Harrison's 1,200-word expose was unexpected. She claims that an unsolicited student e-mail inspired her to share her thoughts on University policing policies. Her reply was thorough, eloquent, savvy, and downright impressive. While I'm not wholly convinced that the University would be as responsive to a negative court order as the police chief contends, I respect her forthrightness. In a time when...

Since the inception of the failed “Bowl Alliance” in 1996 and the subsequent “Bowl Championship Series (BCS)” which has had its share of problems, many sportswriters, commentators, and college football fans have argued that each season should end with an NFL-style playoff to determine a national champion. This debate revolves around the question of the role athletics play as divisions of universities. Many argue that a playoff will benefit “mid major” and smaller schools who – because of weak schedules – never have the chance to play for the title, even when they are undefeated (BYU 2001, Utah 2004, Boise...

Not long ago our esteemed classmate Claire Michaels asked a provocative question: is liberal ideology a fairytale? The text of her e-mail follows: I'm reading this book called On Beauty by Zadie Smith, and there's a part where two black characters are talking about affirmative action, and the conservative one says: "Kiki, if there's one thing I understand about you liberals, it's how much you like to be told a fairytale. You complain about creation myths-but you have a dozen of your own. Liberals never believe that conservatives are motivated by moral convictions as profoundly held as those you liberals...