CNN Diatribe

Over at Dartwire, Adi Sivaraman ’10 writes about the misreporting that has happened in the aftermath of the recent trustee election.

I found it particularly interesting that CNN referred to the petition trustees as the football-and-fraternities faction. When I talked to Smith, he was actually critical of the amount of funding football was receiving in comparison to swimming. Some quotes from the interview:

I don’t know why it’s acceptable to reward the football team with new facilities and let the swim team have the worst facilities in the Ivy League.

I think women’s sports need to be valued and supported financially just as much as the marquee men’s sports: football and basketball.

Think about the plight of the swim team for example. They seem to be getting nothing but resistance from the administration. I think that is out of step with the College’s traditional values.

It’s clear that football’s new facilities were mostly funded by alumni gifts earmarked specifically for the new training center, but the point being that CNN’s attempt to paint Smith as a “football-and-fraternity” trustee is ridiculous.