I am a student at UMass Boston who regularly supports The Mass Media by paying optional fees, and am writing to you today to express my dismay, disgust, and finally shame that my school’s newspaper would accept funds for publishing the advertising supplement called “The Silent Epidemic.”

The group that paid for the ad, as I’m sure you are aware, is the Human Life Alliance – a wealthy special interests group that focuses on restricting reproductive choice and specifically targets the rights of low income women. It is appalling that the so-called “independent student newspaper” at UMass would be so easily bought into aiding an organization that is so detrimental to our specific student body.

Please, in the future, subject large advertising supplements of this sort to a democratic editorial review process before publishing.

Meanwhile, I would be interested in receiving a reply in order to better understand the nature and reason for this decision.

Thank you,Sandra Haley