A Workable Result

Regarding “PAW’s Future: An Agreement” (December issue), this should work. I understand the concern at an apparent dichotomy between being “owned” and being “independent,” but it is, I submit, a misplaced dichotomy. Having spent much of my career advising public-sector clients on constitutional issues, I am painfully aware that “rights” are neither self-evident nor self-actualizing. They exist because the participants in a society have bought into the importance of, for example, respecting the First (or Fourth, or Fifth, or Ninth) Amendment rights of people whose ideas or actions they oppose, or even despise. If the University and PAW have agreed to respect PAW’s independence, and the University keeps the deal, then it will happen. If the University breaks the deal, then PAW will have to look elsewhere. In the meantime, the matter is resolved.