To the Editor:
Re “Waiting to Lock Down Cost 36,000 Lives, Estimate Says” (front page, May 21):
If the C.E.O. of a large company received certain knowledge of toxic conditions in the workplace that put the lives of employees at serious risk of death, and the C.E.O. did nothing, and workers died as a result, then he or she would be liable for negligent or reckless homicide.
President Trump has sovereign immunity. Nevertheless, his inaction for months after being informed by credible intelligence reports of the threat of Covid-19, his statements encouraging citizens to risk their lives by taking unproven drugs, his encouragement of large groups of protesters who risk exposure to the coronavirus and his continuing failure to adopt a coherent national plan of defense are at least the moral equivalent of negligent mass manslaughter.
Eric W. Orts
Philadelphia
The writer is a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
To the Editor:
The federal government has a plan for reopening. Maryland has another plan for reopening. Baltimore County has a different plan for reopening. The City of Baltimore has its own timeline for reopening. My employer, Johns Hopkins University, has not yet announced its timeline for reopening. Yet there is truly only one plan for reopening: my plan.
Ultimately, we must each decide when we will reopen. If my neighbors, colleagues at work, and city, county and state residents do not follow social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines, I will not reopen. Only when testing and tracing procedures are being fully and consistently implemented and when all people and employers are adhering to health and safety protocols will I consider reopening myself.
Alan Guttman
Baltimore
To the Editor:
If it is safe to reopen the country, shouldn’t the White House reopen for tours?
George Hague
Kansas City, Mo.
Pompeo’s Role in Firing of Inspector General
To the Editor:
Re “Taking Jabs at Senator, Pompeo Defends Push to Dismiss a Watchdog” (news article, May 21):
President Trump’s pattern of purging inspectors general within his administration, including the latest ouster of the State Department’s inspector general, Steve A. Linick, is contemptible. But the reported reason — that he was investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of an underling to walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning and make restaurant reservations — suggests that the inspector general was wasting time and effort in such pettifoggery.
A solution may be legislation setting standards for inspector general investigations, along with restrictions on disciplinary action against them if acting within those bounds.
Marshall H. Tanick
Minneapolis
What’s in a Gap Year?
To the Editor:
In “Taking a Gap Year? Spend It Here” (Op-Ed, May 11), William Deresiewicz asserts that the primary problem with the way gap years are conceived is this: “the assumption that the best thing you can do with your time between high school and college is to go to a developing country, learn about the people there and use your privilege to help improve their lives.”
I couldn’t agree more that this is a faulty, inappropriate and dated premise. But by emphasizing that privileged 18-year-olds should instead focus on helping people they don’t know in communities that aren’t their own in the United States, Mr. Deresiewicz misses another crucial distinction.
The most important opportunity a gap year affords is not just about service but about learning: about oneself, about the world and about how, someday, down the line, the two can connect to drive appropriate and lasting change.
It’s time to redefine the gap year as what it has the potential to be: an inclusive, humbling and transformative pathway into young adulthood. With many high school graduates from across the socioeconomic spectrum unlikely to go to college this fall as planned, it’s never been more crucial that we get this right.
Abby Falik
Oakland, Calif.
The writer is the founder and chief executive of Global Citizen Year, a nonprofit forging a new path between high school and college.