LETTERS
LETTERS Failing grades I very much appreciate "Why Higher Education Is Neither" [Jason DeParle, Liza Mundy, October]. I think one of the only ways to rescue universities from their current...
...Clearly, higher education has failed in their cases...
...Then there are universities, including famous ones, where professional ethics are completely neglected in faculty recruitment, so that this relatively civil line of work is warped by bullying and lying punks...
...2) No-fault does reduce auto-related litigation...
...Yet another perversion is the substitution of sentiment for reason—thrashing away thinking in classes and replacing it with emotional reactions...
...But can an essay which sets up straw persons to knock down and which violates canons of journalism, common courtesy, and professionalism really shape public opinion...
...CAROLINE SMITH Washington, D.C...
...But she misses a main point of our article: Much of what has been enacted under the no-fault label isn't really no-fault, but rather severely bastardized forms fully protecting the trial lawyers' interest in continued litigation of accident claims...
...A 1986 GAO study of auto insurance rates around the country found that rates in no-fault states averaged 5 percent higher than in tort states...
...Recently, we presented to the California Trial Lawyers our actuarially sound (according to the California insurance commissioner) proposal for a fully affordable, $180-a-year policy that would guarantee every Californian involved in an accident, whether or not at fault, full recovery for all medical expenses and compensation for 75 percent of wage losses...
...A few points in our defense: It is a course in social history designed specifically for history majors with a solid background in the discipline...
...I too bemoan stupid fluff courses and endorse some sort of core curriculum...
...Jason DeParle and Liza Mundy forcefully made their point...
...Another inaccuracy in the article was the statement: "No-fault treats auto insurance like any other kind of insurance: If you get injured, you get paid...
...More reliable are studies focused on New York and Massachusetts, in which researchers studied docket sheets, which account for every case before a court...
...The three states that have most closely approached pure no-fault have seen a lower rate of increase than tort states...
...The 1986 study cited by Smith is based on the grossly inadequate statistical basis of published court opinions...
...My permission is required for admission to one of the 15 seats offered...
...The only insurance that pays you any time you get injured is health insurance, and we all know what is happening to the cost of this product...
...It simply requires too much work...
...The authors reply: Caroline Smith's letter only adds fuel to our conclusion that Ralph Nader is the misinformed one when it comes to auto no-fault...
...I was amazed at the amount of misinformation contained in "Whose No-Fault Is It Anyway...
...Its real title eschews any references to Whiggish greatness and has an important subtitle: "Famous American Trials: A Social History...
...Still, my students' as well as my own reputations have been questioned...
...In addition, victims would be free, should their injuries exceed $15,000 or be serious or permanent, to bring suit in court...
...The internal fragmentation of a thing we used to call "the community of scholars" has split apart even departments and has essentially destroyed any institutional responsibility for the quality of teaching, the rigor of student evaluation, the debate and discourse concerning the operative mission of the outfit, etc...
...It is also not true that nofault auto insurance reduces the amount of motor vehicle litigation...
...LETTERS Failing grades I very much appreciate "Why Higher Education Is Neither" [Jason DeParle, Liza Mundy, October...
...JAMES DAVID BARBER Durham, North Carolina James David Barber is a professor of political science at Duke University...
...Grading then becomes a result not of standards but of power: the professor's personal preferences, which, in the main, are rather less interesting than knowledge...
...JOHN C. GAMBOA San Francisco, California Mr...
...The authors plugged the insurance industry's rhetoric on no-fault without critical analysis, and, in doing so, they misled us all on the merits of no-fault and on the real reasons for high auto insurance rates...
...In fact, once no-fault conquers car insurance, it could sensibly be applied in other areas traditionally dominated by the liability principle...
...The serious questions raised by the piece may still remain, even though this reader suspects that analyses based on superficialities alone usually produce pretty pitiful stuff...
...I would have loved to hear from DeParle and Mundy...
...Sadly, I never heard from the authors...
...Many kinds of insurance, including auto insurance, were developed specifically to protect people against the possibility of harming another person and the liability that might result, not to protect against personal injury...
...More troubling is the authors' failure to contact me to inquire about the course's substance (which they nonetheless criticize) or to request a syllabus...
...Unfortunately, our organization and the other minority groups we are working with, such as the California Council of Urban Leagues, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Chinese for Affirmative Action, lacked the financial resources to fight the trial lawyer lobby...
...I teach an undergraduate seminar at the University of Texas in Austin that DeParle and Mundy incorrectly labeled "Great American Trials...
...This statement demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of insurance...
...JOHN S. HUGHES Austin, Texas Fault lines Our organization, which is a West Coast Hispanic think tank, commends you for your article, "Whose No-Fault Is It Anyway...
...Was I the only offender not contacted...
...I positively delight in discussing pedagogy, particularly in reference to my own courses...
...3) It's true that some other forms of insurance operate on the liability principle...
...Such simple journalistic inaccuracy troubles, but a generous and nonrigorous reader should excuse...
...My initial reaction, however, is now sufficiently alloyed with humor and an appreciation of irony...
...Caroline Smith is a lobbyist for Congress Watch, a Naderfounded organization...
...The result is a richly ironic piece...
...We are presently working on behalf of six million California drivers who cannot afford to pay $2,000 or more for auto insurance...
...Enough defending...
...Journalism is essential to shoving aside the P.R...
...I think one of the only ways to rescue universities from their current deterioration— a pattern not at all new—is to bring out the reality and generate discourse thereabout...
...To take her objections seriatim: 1) Smith correctly notes that insurance prices in socalled no-fault states have as a whole risen more quickly than in traditional tort liability jurisdictions...
...This study found that the average number of motor vehicle injury suits in no-fault states was higher than in tort states in every year between 1973 and 1984...
...To our great shock, the California Trial Lawyers successfully sabotaged our effort before the California Legislature...
...Nader has been working for many years on the only real method to bring insurance rates down: Make the insurance industry accountable to consumers...
...Peter Spiro, Daniel Mirvish, October...
...Keep up the good work...
...These studies found drops of 80 percent and 87 percent respectively in auto lawsuits with the enactment of no-fault measures...
...Blaming Ralph Nader for high auto insurance premiums may make a good headline, but it is unfair and untrue...
...Gamhoa is executive director of the Latino Issues Forum...
...obfuscation and the jargon juggling by which university administrations keep trying to jack up their money and cheapen the student reward...
...If such reported decisions are to be believed, there were, for instance, only 10 cases relating to auto insurance in Massachusetts in 1984...
...It is not true that no-fault insurance is cheaper...
...The alternative is not some old-time, right-wing canon of the white male West, but a devotion to quality rather than the color or gender or place the material springs from...
...States that have enacted no-fault generally have higher insurance rates than states that have maintained a traditional tort system...
...But just because they exist doesn't make them good: witness soaring liability-insurance costs faced by doctors, municipalities, and businesses generally...
...I must confess some amazement at their total absence of curiosity...
...I can assure the Monthly's outraged readers that no one satisfies basic history requirements with the course...
...Or so I tell my students in "Famous American Trials...
...In addition to its subject matter, the course is flagged by the university as one that attempts to sharpen students' writing skills...
Vol. 21 • January 1990 • No. 12
