Editor:The other day, I read the column by [Myria] Holman and [Olivia] Ledee dated 2/8/02.I was surprised to find Loyola described as a “social justice-oriented” university.Surely, I thought, this is a mistake. In my four years at Loyola I’d never heard the term. Certainly the Jesuits would never let such a vague, nebulous, trendy term be used to describe their university!I looked at the Statement of Educational Purpose. Nope, not there.I looked in the Goals of Loyola. Nope, not a breath of social justice.Perhaps it would be in the Character and Commitment Statement, and lo, it was there in Commitment #7!How tragic! How could this be? Social justice?All justice is social. What justice or injustice is there on a desert island?I was somewhat relieved to find the terms critical thought and critical thinking mentioned more often in the above documents.Social justice is used as a tool to argue against inequities in the world by Holman and Ledee.They fail to cite any references for the myriad facts and inequities leading to starvation and death of millions.Yet they go on to claim that a “living wage based on need rather than skills” would solve the problems of the working class.God help us!This is straight out of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto,” i.e. “…from each according to his skills to each according to his needs.”And from there they mention that in this century 23 innocent people have been executed!My dear Holman and Ledee, this past century (the 20th) saw the deaths of 40 million Soviet citizens at the hands of Stalin, 60 million Chinese at the hand of Mao and six million by Pol Pot, all in the name of social justice and wealth redistribution.Hitler had his own ideas of social justice. I am sure you are familiar with the totals.I dare say there was a majority of innocents in the 150 or so millions killed at the hands of governments in the century just completed.If you doubt my numbers, check a history book (or pick up any Solzhenitsyn novel. He lists them all.).I couldn’t help but think of a quote of Milton Friedman: “A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.”Don’t go running to the ramparts in the name of social justice until you have looked at the unintended consequences of cockamamie ideas based on half-truths and cooked numbers.

John K. Dooley ’79