Dear Editor,

The news brief titled “The Prison Bitch” (Feb. 28) is a stunning example of the continued need for discussions concerning diversity at Emerson.

Misogynistic language is hardly appropriate for a newspaper (college or otherwise), and the obsession with Michelle Kosilek’s biology illustrates an endemic cultural terror about gender non-conforming individuals. Just last month a fifteen-year-old boy was shot to death by a classmate in Oxnard, Calif. for wearing makeup and heels to school.

Finally, the throwaway reference to the submissive position of being someone’s “bitch” reveals a serious lack of understanding about the sad state of the U.S. prison system with regard to race and class inequities.

-Dr. Elizabeth Whitney

Scholar in Residence

Institute for Liberal Arts

Interdisciplinary Studies