PUBLIC HOUSING POLICY

The editors of the Racine Journal Times would not "gladly endorse" the
Supreme Court decision giving authorities the power to evict tenants for
what others do if the same "zero tolerance" policy 63-year-old
great-grandmother Pearlie Rucker is subjected to applied to their own
living quarters.

If the Racine Journal Times staff were booted out of their homes because
friends, relatives and casual acquaintances beyond their control were
caught using drugs, a very different notion of "responsibility" would
emerge no matter how "judiciously" the rule was applied.

Would the editors be willing to run criminal background checks, do drug
tests and strip search their friends, relatives and visitors to retain
their housing? After all, they have just as much obligation to keep their
neighborhoods drug free as poor people in public housing do. Never mind
that the police cannot accomplish a "drug-free America" -- if someone you
vaguely know uses drugs, you go into the street.

Violation of the age-old Biblical standard that the punishment should fit
the crime and that only the guilty should be punished ("an eye for an eye"
Exodus 21:24) raises big questions. Why does drug prohibition cancel out
constitutional rights? How many rights should be sacrificed to America's
long-failed drug crusade? No doubt the misguided mavens at the Racine
Journal Times would have gladly upheld the Salem witch hunts as a means to
end "the reign of terror" there if they had been around in 1692.

Redford Givens, San Francisco