Dear Editors,
While I applaud your thoroughness in addressing conflict of interest in the front page article “Petition Denounces Dershowitz for MSE” (Oct. 8), declaring in the byline who on your staff is affiliated with MSE and that they were not involved, I cannot help but find it disturbing that you did not pay so much attention to the same in the opinions piece in the same issue, “Dershowitz petition lacks validity.” A disclosure of conflict-of-interest would be in order, given that the author, Theodore Kupfer, serves on the Programming committee for MSE, as evidenced on MSE’s own website. In order for productive dialogue on sensitive issues to occur, all conflicts of interest should be disclosed in a transparent and upfront manner. As a disclosure of my own COI, I am a co-author of the petition, and co-Director of DSAGA, a signatory organization. My hope is that, moving forward, we can all be honest about our affiliations and motives.
– John Hughes, sophomore
Editor's note: Clarification of Kupfer's affiliation has been added to the article.
