Schmidly shouldn't allow Fox to give commencement speech

Editor,

We are writing in protest of Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico and CEO of Coca-Cola, serving as the commencement speaker this spring and of UNM's collaboration with Fox as described on the front page of UNM's Web site.

As two former presidents of the Student Organization of Latin American Studies, we are appalled at UNM's collaboration with a man who has been accused of presiding over human-rights abuses of indigenous peoples, women and human rights activists, among others. While Fox was president between 2000 and 2006, hundreds of women continued to disappear and be murdered on New Mexico's border in Ciudad Juarez. According to Amnesty International, during a protest in Atenco, Mexico, in 2006, at least 26 women were raped and protesters were beaten, tortured and illegally deported. No one has ever been held accountable for these human-rights abuses.

Furthermore, the United Nations condemned Fox for not supporting indigenous rights in Mexico after Congress failed to pass the San Andres Accords. In light of this track record, we oppose President David Schmidly and UNM bestowing upon this man the honor of giving the commencement speech. While we do believe it is extremely important for UNM and New Mexico to create alliances with Mexico, supporting a man who represents elite corporate interests at the expense of human rights is not the kind of collaboration UNM needs.

We also believe Schmidly's failure to consult with a broad spectrum of faculty or students on this matter to be symbolic of this administration's lack of respect for dialogue and transparency. In conclusion, we urge faculty and students to urge Schmidly to rescind this invitation to Fox.

Lucinda Grinnell, UNM student

Sandra Ortsman, UNM alumna