Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

Gender pay gap op-ed devoid of accurate sources

TO THE EDITOR:

As a frequent reader of the paper, I must admit it is odd to see how quickly the quality of Miami Student articles fluctuate, but I usually enjoy them nevertheless. That is, until I reach the heavily biased, questionable-fact driven, two-page hell that many call the Opinion section.

A certain article on the far side of page seven caught my eye, "Tables starting to turn in gender discrepancy," by columnist Greta Hallberg. It wasn't that hard to agree with her, because the whole article felt like a piece satirizing blatant pandering and the over utilization of un-cited statistics. Was the ultimate message really just inequality is bad (though getting better)? Who would disagree with that? Does The Miami Student staff really think their readership is that cheap to buy over?

The list of statistics range from the female-male ratio in certain departments at MU, the average ages of House and Senate members, the controversial gender gap statistics and the number of women as CEOs in the top 500 companies. While I don't doubt the trends that the "statistics" portray, the article left me asking: "where the hell did all of these come from?" I found it darkly ironic that somebody who labeled themself as pursuing a degree in journalism would allow themself to write such a statistic-driven article without any citation, and even include a cheeky "These statistics don't lie" at the end of it all. Lie?! I don't even know where or who they are coming from! For all I know Vineyard-Vine wearing Chad Chadson from your man-dominated econ class could have given you these statistics. When compared to the other opinion columnist piece of the day (by Brett Milam) that had consistently cited specific studies and actual quotations, the lack in professionalism in Greta's piece really shines through.

Nick Shermis

sherminn@miamioh.edu