What does the word settlement mean to you?

It appears that the Jewish Community Relations Council has now decided to go on the offensive against SCSU. In a letter in this morning's St. Cloud Times, Molly Grisham, JCRC's deputy director for public relations, takes issue with the university's statement that the settlement includes no admission of guilt.

One disappointment is the press reports indicating that despite the provisions of the settlement, which are an implicit indictment of the university's conduct, the university refuses to admit to any wrongdoing.

It defies logic and reason that the university would agree to the provisions of the settlement yet claim it is not responsible. Perhaps this is one of the disadvantages of a settlement; there is no explicit guilty party, no one to be held directly accountable by law.

Ms. Grisham, if you wanted to determine that we did anything wrong here, take us to court. Don't settle. But no, you took the money, you took the new Jewish Studies Center (when there already is a Holocaust and Genocide Center on this campus), and you were supposed to have settled your differences. You want to have it both ways.

Here is why it is wrong to settle: you settle to avoid costs and to protect the reputation of your institution, and these people will use any settlement to mean an admission of guilt. This paragraphs makes a mockery of that settlement by assuming that the unproven was proven by the fact that we gave these people money to go away. Thanks a million and a quarter, Attorney General Hatch.

Meanwhile, Larry Roth conducts a mild Fisking of the Times editorial.