It is not my intention in writing to condemn or condone the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (“School of the Americas”) or those activists who would see it closed.

I merely wish to express frustration at the one-sidedness of Jennifer Michalski’s story on both subjects in the Dec. 3 Tribune.

The students and activists Michalski interviewed insinuated the persons comprising the current manifestation of the WHINSEC are morally culpable if not complicit in torture, assassination and an array of human rights abuses throughout Latin America.

These are, to be mild, harsh charges; yet none of the accused were given an opportunity to answer accusations. Only a statement from WHINSEC’s Web site is quoted. No graduates, instructors, administrators or representatives of WHINSEC were interviewed for the piece.

Now, I don’t want to blame Michalski entirely if an editorial decision cut WHINSEC statements. However, someone does need to answer for the omission. Failing to give voice to the accused is a violation of understood standards of fairness in journalism.

If we are to think of public opinion as a court, I would have it function as closely to a court of law as possible, with judgment against the accused withheld until they are proven guilty after a weighing of evidence, including their own testimony and defense.

Granted, while the Fort Benning facility was called the SOA, instructors taught inhumane tactics, and some “graduates” returned to Latin America to commit atrocities. This is beyond reasonable doubt.

But are any faculty who taught illicit instructions or administrators who approved the curriculum currently involved with WHINSEC?

Michalski mentions a 20-year commemoration of the murder of six Jesuits, the last atrocity to be given an explicit date in her piece.

Are there any human rights violations traceable to SOA/WHINSEC graduates later than the guerrilla wars of the 1980s?

She also specifies teaching manuals with “controversial interrogation and counterinsurgency methods” dating from the 1980s. Are any objectionable interrogational or tactical methods currently taught at Fort Benning?

These are the questions that deserve to be asked of both WHINSEC reps and the activists. Yet they were not asked.

This cannot but make the piece appear sharply biased toward the demonstrators.

Beyond the glaring lopsidedness of her interview choices, Michalski reinforces a pro-demonstrator reading with occasional but significant subjective language. For example, when she describes the protestors’ keynote speaker:

“Her words were short and concise, spoken with a sense of ease but loaded with an underlying passion.”

Again, I am not arguing about WHINSEC, its merits and demerits in-and-of-themselves. Which is not to say we are not obliged to address the real concerns of its opponents.

However, if this address is to be at all fruitful, we must undertake it with all honesty and rigor of intellect, giving a voice to all relevant facts. So far, too many necessary aspects of the issue have been ignored.

Joseph Clark is a senior in the College of Communication