I, personally, believe that a newspaper should pride itself on the quality of its published pieces, staff produced or not. This week’s edition of The Greyhound fell short in that regard. I completely respect that the Ops section of a publication is meant to represent the various views of its readers. On the other hand, I expect the news outlet to publish works of merit. The submission entitled, “Amanda Bynes’ social media antics are tiring, pathetic” lacks quality. The publication of this article, to me, shows that The Greyhound is desperately lacking submissions. Grammatical errors aside, it is difficult for me to find any cogent material in this article that warranted it being printed. I am truly sorry to the people whose Ops pieces got passed over for this.

I also apologize to individuals suffering from mental health disorders who read this. This article perfectly exemplifies how people are perpetuating mental health stigma (to selfishly quote my own Twitter). If these things were written about someone with a physiological disease, I believe it never would have made it to print. If it isn’t okay to shame someone for publicly displaying symptoms of cancer, for example, why do people think mental health is fair game? Over a month ago, beloved actor Robin Williams took his own life after struggling with depression. People mourned his loss all throughout social media. I witnessed some of these same people mock Amanda Bynes days later. Is a lack of education on mental illness to blame? I would love to know.

The author of this piece states that she follows Amanda Bynes in the news constantly, yet at the same time wants Ms. Bynes off of Twitter and out of her life. To this I would have to suggest that she take her own advice and get off of Amanda Bynes’ twitter. Maybe if she did that she could escape the mental illness that vast numbers of people never will. The author of this article also talks about how she is constantly berated with the line, “Amanda please” and comparisons to Ms. Bynes. If she is truly annoyed by this, I am sorry for her, but “smiling and laughing accordingly” won’t rectify the issue. The stigma against mental health, on the other hand, is an issue we are trying to fix, and frankly, articles like this that are standing in the way are tiring, pathetic.

Julia Seibert, 2015

Letters to the Editor are screened for content, but are printed as they are when received by the Editor in Chief, without editorial changes.