Mr Sash wrote a letter entitled “Fee requests need to be well-scrutinized by all” in which he claims that Zach Dexter and I, Anthony E. Dent, who happen to both write for Carolina Review, are corrupt and dishonest because we also sit on the Finance Committee which hears funding requests. Student Congress recently passed a bill appropriating money to Carolina Review, and Mr Shah believes it is the fact that both Mr Dexter and I sit on the Finance Committee is “salient.”

This also apparently, in his words, “raise[s] legitimate concerns about the way in which funding requests are handled within the finance committee.”

Clearly, Shah implies, this presents a conflict of interest and Mr Dexter and I are guilty of illegitimately directing funds to groups of which we are members.  That conflict of interest is “salient.”

His commentary would merely be absurd if it weren’t impugning our integrity and his accusations completely unfounded.

The facts: yes, Mr Dexter and I are members of Carolina Review and sit on the Finance Committee of which Mr Dexter is the chair. However, neither I nor Mr Dexter introduced the bill in committee or in Student Congress or voted upon any amendments or motions pertaining to the funding request, and we, in addition to Justin Crowder and Duke Cheston in full congress, abstained from voting upon the matter when the question was called.

Unless it is the stated policy of the Daily Tar Heel to publish untruths, they should have done more research before printing a letter chock full of assertions with no evidence to back them up.  I am disappointed that Mr Dunn would allow such a letter impugning someone’s honor to be printed upon such baseless accusations.