Readers comment on UF's Honors program director being removed, Rep. Cammack's record, more

Questionable decisions

As a graduate student who completed one of his master's degrees at the University of Florida in the early 1990s, I have mixed emotions and opinions of what has gone on at the university in the intervening years. Some things have been outstanding while others have been rather questionable at best.

UF professors, staff, students and others can be justifiably proud of the top-five ranking among public universities, but I believe this impressively high rating may suffer and/or be reduced due to poor decision making on the part of UF administration as well as on the part of the governor and Republican legislators.  

That being said, the purpose of this letter is to air my extreme displeasure of the removal of Mark Law from his position as the director of the Honors Program. It has been determined that Law has not had a bad evaluation in over 30 years of employment at UF.

Unless something happened in the very recent past since his last evaluation that was/is extremely bad, Law, his peers and many others should be understandably upset, angry, dismayed or a number of other negative descriptors.

Jonathan Coron, Gainesville 

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Confront DeSantis

Ron DeSantis will do anything to become our next president. Rumors from Tallahassee suggest that ex-Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran will be hired to replace Kent Fuchs, the current president of UF.

UF is rated among the top five public universities in the country, and its College of Pharmacy is third in research. What a feather in DeSantis's cap to boast about UF as he campaigns.

The problem for UF is that Corcoran is simply a modern GOP bully, with mediocre skills. Earlier, he applied to become Florida State University’s president, and its faculty disputed his qualifications for the job. UF faculty should follow this example and have the courage to confront DeSantis.

Hopefully, the current UF leaders will follow suit. We shall see.

Jonathan van Blokland, Gainesville 

Looking out for her constituents

A recent letter criticized Kat Cammack, for voting against bills she disagrees with — as if any member of Congress shouldn’t vote against a bill they believe is wrong. Of course Cammack should vote against Democratic bills. Just look at the disaster the Dems have delivered in less than two years: record inflation, record gas prices, record illegal immigration, high crime.

Cammack is standing up to this lunacy and looking out for her constituents. The shame is the Dems continue to not care about their constituents, and pass useless bills labeled inflation reduction that have nothing at all to do with inflation reduction. God bless Cammack. Applause is what she deserves.

Dean Tate, Newberry 

Regaining credibility

David Whitley’s column about the San Diego shortstop caught cheating with performance-enhancing drugs was both wistful and ironic. Sure, it would be refreshing to hear one of these guys say, “I cheated, it was wrong, I’m sorry,” but why single out athletes when we don’t even hold U.S. presidents to the truth?

If I’d seen proof the 2020 election was stolen then I would have been at the Capitol protesting on Jan. 6th, too. What I did see was a clown show, a shell game where Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Sydney Powell made election fraud “proof” magically reappear somewhere else each time they got pinned down to show it.

There is no proof, because Donald Trump lost, bigly. The sooner this country stops making allowances for heavy-hitting infielders and reality TV politicians, the sooner baseball, and America, can regain some sense of credibility.

David Young, Gainesville 

Help veterans

Nothing upsets me more than watching a TV ad requesting help for our damaged veterans. Is it because these heroes don't deserve our money? No — not by a long shot. It just blows my mind that every one of these warriors hasn't already gotten all — and I mean all, not some — of the help they need, paid for by the government that sent them in harm's way.

Our benevolent leaders have no trouble sending over $500 million to Planned Parenthood every year so that more babies can be killed. Ukraine has been blessed with billions of U.S. dollars so that they can fight an unwinnable war. Tons of money that was supposed to go for "COVID relief" ended up in the hands of fraudsters. And there is so much more.

Why can't we see to it that every veteran receives every kind of help that is needed?

Leonard C. Young, Keystone Heights 

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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Letters on UF's Honors program director, Rep. Kat Cammack, more