01:00 AM EDT on Friday, April 8, 2005

This is in response to two articles: a news story last Nov. 15 entitled "Professor, is there room on the right?," about Rhode Island College social-work student Bill Felkner, and Mr. Felkner's Commentary column on Jan. 31, entitled "Get the bias out of RIC's poverty classes."

My name is Jesse Capece and I, like Mr. Felkner, am pursuing a master's degree at RIC's School of Social Work. I have heard Mr. Felkner run off at the mouth about how the school is left-leaning. The absurdity of this argument borders on insanity.

Of course, the School of Social Work is left-leaning in its beliefs. Social work is about change. Everything that social work does is geared toward destroying the social norms that oppress so many. In short, social work is in the business of change; we are not trying to conserve anything.

In "Professor, is there room on the right?," Mr. Felkner is called an individual who has liberal views on social issues and conservative views on economics. So essentially what he believes is that social problems need to be solved without providing financial support. If one doesn't realize that in today's world the economy determines the severity of social injustices, then that individual should hit the books.

Also in that article, Mr. Felkner said that he is concerned with the "liberal agenda exhibited by the faculty and how these implicit pressures from authority figures can be oppressive." So his argument is that an authority figure exhibiting a certain agenda can be oppressive. Well, then, shouldn't he be concerned with the conservative agenda exhibited by our president? Isn't he a tad influential?

Jim Ryczek, the man whom he insults by questioning his teaching abilities, is a pretty influential guy, I am sure, but I would imagine that George Bush is more influential.

Don't talk about authority figures exhibiting an agenda. Just about every authority figure in America has a conservative agenda; the only group that frequently opposes them is professors. And what a coincidence -- these people with strong liberal beliefs also have Ph.D.'s hanging on their walls.

Mr. Felkner thought it was unfair that a teacher declined to show FahrenHYPE 9/11 in class, a movie that labels Michael Moore as a propagandist. However, although the movie was, in fact, shown, Mr. Felkner complained about how social workers are biased individuals who don't see all sides of the argument. If he is truly concerned with biased education, why doesn't he go to the University of Rhode Island and ask the ROTC classes to show Platoon or Full Metal Jacket?

In his Jan. 31 column, Mr. Felkner said that the end result of a left-leaning school is "a loss of academic freedom." This makes me think that someone put a gun to his head and forced him into social work. Last time I checked, RIC had a wide variety of subjects he can explore. There is no loss of academic freedom at all.

Bill, your argument makes no sense. Saying the School of Social Work is liberal is like saying the sky is blue. Students enter the program because they know it is liberal. These students already know the other side of the issues we discuss. They already know the conservative side and, more important, how it does not work. Now these students are at RIC to master the opposing view.

Mr. Felkner needs to seriously examine if social work is the profession for him.

JESSE CAPECE

Providence