Unity or unanimity?(au contraire)(Column)

It didn't take long for the letters to start arriving. Indeed, some might call the correspondence "hate mail."

Seemingly minutes after my last Au Contraire column, "The Javits Debacle," appeared in print, concerns were expressed by readers that my proposal to eliminate Javits funding from the federal budget was way off the mark. One of my colleagues, a professor of gifted child education in Indiana, called me "self-serving, myopic, and dangerous," and suggested to the editor that my column be banished from future pages of Gifted Child Today. Another respondent sent an anonymous note to my wife, a school superintendent, that was attached to a copy of my Javits article. The note's message: "Aren't you embarrassed to be married to this man?" Yet another writer contacted the GCT publication office asking whether the editor had, in fact, read the manuscript before it went to print, amazed that such a critical piece would survive the editor's scrutiny.

Huh?

Indeed, the venom ran strong. Thankfully, I possess the professional maturity to realize the difference between a critique and an attack.

Of all the comments received about the piece, the one that was the most bothersome of all came wrapped in polite packaging. Here's the scenario: I had been invited to present the keynote address at a gifted conference in a nearby state several weeks after the appearance of "The Javits Debacle." One of the conference planners, a strong advocate of the Javits program, called me both to chastise my views and to make certain that I would not raise this issue during my visit. I assured her that I had no intention of addressing the Javits issue, as I was being brought to her state to speak on other topics related to gifted children. It would be rude, I explained, to speak on an issue I had not been asked to address. Relieved, the caller reemphasized the importance of staying mum on Javits: "We are trying to build unity as we seek an increase in gifted funding in our state, and anything said contrary to our stand would show disunity--we just can't have that."