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Letter from Florida International University General Counsel Thomas Mead Santoro to FIRE, December 12, 2001

December 12, 2001

Office of the General Counsel
Via Facsimile 215-717-3440 & U.S. Mail

Alan Charles Kors
President
Greg Lukianoff, Esq.
Director of Legal and Public Advocacy
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc.
437 Chestnut Street, Suite 200
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Gentlemen:

Confirming my several conversations with Mr. Lukianoff, and following up on my letter of October 12, 2001, my clients have agreed to include native speakers "or equivalent" in the catalog course descriptions plus "or permission of instructor". Accordingly, we propose to change the course descriptions as follows:

SPN 2340 Intermediate Spanish for Native Speakers I
Intensive Spanish for Native speakers or equivalent (or those with permission of instructor) who have had little or no formal training in the language.

SPN 3341 Advanced Spanish for Native Speakers or Equivalent
Improvement of literacy skills for Native speakers or equivalent through grammar review, composition and selective readings. Pre-requisites: SPN 2346 or permission of the instructor.

Additionally, I wish to assure your organization that Florida International University does not discriminate on the basis of national origin (or other legally prohibited basis) in its enrollment of students in courses of their choosing, and for which they are otherwise qualified. Ours is a multiethnic, multicultural university to which few universities, we believe, can compare. We value and promote that diversity. We hope you recognize that the university at no time intended to do other than inform its catalogue readers of the nature of the preparation needed for successful performance in the listed courses. I hope this will finally resolve the issue.

Thank you for your patience and courtesies.

Very truly yours,

Thomas Mead Santoro
General Counsel

cc:
Modesto A. Maidique, President
Mark B. Rosenberg, Provost & Executive Vice President
Rosa L. Jones, Vice Provost
Arthur W. Herriott, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences

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