Your recent coverage and editorial on the lack of background checks on UW faculty indicates a lack of "background checks."

First of all, based on what I have heard, department chair is not a "promotion" but a necessary evil and is essentially an administrative position that is handed from faculty member to faculty member as a sort of hot potato.

Second, arrest-and-conviction records alone are insufficient for refusing to hire someone in Wisconsin. State law recognizes the fact that those convicted of a crime — or even accused of a crime that is later thrown out — do need to work and live somewhere, and that stability in employment is a key part of rehabilitation.

If a prospective employer asks about a criminal record and the candidate is subsequently not hired, there are grounds for a discrimination complaint unless the employer can show the conviction is substantially related to the job duties or prevents performance of those duties (e.g., jobs that require bonding and working with children, the disabled or elderly).

Finally, I don't understand the claims by Scott Suder that "The UW seems to think that, for some reason, they are above the law." Suder's very comments indicate he himself is either above the law or does not understand it. Does he think that everyone listed in conviction-data systems should be ineligible for employment at UW? They list traffic tickets and divorces, too.

And should all felons be banned from using the library or from attending class even in a student role? Until the U.S. Supreme Court case overturning sodomy laws, a consensual act between adults of the same sex was a felony in Idaho and Michigan. And, in Wisconsin, adultery remains a felony.

Dan Ross

Special Student