I feel obliged to question the editorial decision to run the comic "School Daze" in the Nov. 18 issue of The Observer. The third frame of this comic strip depicted an SYR gift obviously intended to be repossessed and used by the giver and not the recipient and contained a racial slur which should not have been permitted to run.

Please be more careful in the future of using terms such as "Indian Giver." I assume, and sincerely hope, that it was mere thoughtlessness and not deliberate racism that led you to make the decision to publish a comic strip which used that ugly figure of speech.

Did you know that we just finished celebrating Native American Heritage Week? This past Friday, Notre Dame and Saint Mary's hosted the well-known Native American actress Elaine Miles to speak to students about achieving their goals and dreams.

I am relieved that your strip didn't run on Friday for her to see and ashamed that such a thing was published at all. I implore all members of the Notre Dame family to banish the phrase "Indian Giver" from their vocabularies and to reflect on the history of the indigenous people of this continent. In treaty after broken treaty, which party consistently took away what they had given and unfailingly reneged on their earlier pledges?

Shame on The Observer for publishing this comic strip.

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