Ms. DeBlazer, I really do appreciate your comments, but I have to say, people can make racial remarks on the record and get away with them. Just look at some of the crap that public figures and officials said during and after Hurricane Katrina. Only one person so far, Michael Brown, a gross incompetent, has resigned, and even he's STILL on the payroll collecting our tax dollars. That bovine mother of the president made her racist remarks about the evacuees in Houston, and as far as I know, she hasn't apologized, has she? And we're talking about people who experienced about as extreme a set of circumstances as anyone could imagine. All of which is to say that while anti-gay bigotry is still quite common, so is outright racism. You mention Harry Truman's comments, but you could have moved forward half a century to just a few years ago, when Trent Lott made his outrageously racist comments praising that hypocrite Strom Thurmond. Remember that initially there was no response or criticism from the White House. At all. Lott continues to serve as a Senator though he's repeatedly met with the avowedly racist White Citizen's Councils and similar groups in Mississippi, and John Ashcroft served a full term as AG despite having praised the Confederacy and made outrageous comments against one of Clinton's Black nominees. Let's also not forget Nixon, Reagan, William French Smith, Jesse Helms, Thurmond, etc.

In terms of Rice, I think they should just go I-AA and be done with it. Duke is one model of how a major academic powerhouse really could care less about football--why don't they just concede EVERY game to their ACC opponents and be done with it? Even Virginia and Maryland TRY to win their games--while Northwestern, California or Stanford might be the other models. But either way, Rice is going to have to put tons of time and energy into recruiting AND find an excellent head coach, or a miracle worker like the guy they've got at Texas Tech, who takes walk-ons and turns them into stars. Rice is one of the best institutions in the country, so they could just focus on the academic side of things. Or share a football team with Columbia University, which still can't get its act together, in I-AA. Some schools, like NYU and Chicago, gave up football a long time ago. They're doing just fine. But then, MIT has a football team, so maybe Rice doesn't want to go that far....

Rice has not been 10-1 in football since the Kennedy Administration. If ANY American university had a coach that gave it that kind of winning record after a 40-year drought, he/she could openly bash gays, Blacks, women, Jews, the disabled and the Amish, and question the need for science and literature in the curriculum and get a raise in salary.

But we're not talking about a powerhouse football school like USC. We're talking about Rice, where losing seasons are commonplace, and even having a barely winning season like 6-5 is cause for celebration. In fact, very few head coaches (since I was a student there) have had winning records, and have ever been fired because of their losing records.

The changing of the presidential guard had plenty to do with Hatfield's stepping down. So, yes, indirectly, his comments may have ultimately done him in, maybe more than his dismal record, maybe not. All I care about as an active alumnus is that he is out of my hair for good and no longer sullying the reputation of my hard-earned degree(s). Now he is free to publicly spout his ignorant views at some school that will tolerate him preaching his gay hate to his players, like Baylor in Waco or something. Maybe Jerry Falwell's Liberty University has a football team who needs a coach?

And by the way, it's logic-impaired. There's an edit function. Take advantage.

Falwell hired someone else -- who's actually a good guy.

I'm going to leave the typo right where it is, since it pisses you off.