To the Editor:
Re “Steinem Focused on Wins Despite Recent Blows” (front page, Sept. 5):
Your article about Gloria Steinem’s legacy noted that some institutions that she co-founded, like the National Women’s Political Caucus, have “frayed over time.” It asked whether feminism needs a single person or organization to carry on Gloria’s legacy.
Gloria answered that question herself years ago. “I’m keeping my torch,” she said. “And I’m using it to light other people’s torches. Because the whole idea that there is only one torch is the problem.”
The Ms. Foundation for Women, which Gloria co-founded in 1973 with Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marlo Thomas, is one of the many bright torches that carry on Gloria’s legacy.
Ms. Foundation is a leading national public foundation that over 50 years has granted more than $100 million to over 1,600 organizations across the United States and its territories building feminist power and fighting for reproductive justice, racial justice, economic justice for women, ending violence against women and girls, and more.
As the Ms. Foundation’s new president and chief executive, I am honored to lead a powerful organization built, as Gloria intended, to keep lighting those torches and building women’s collective power for change.
Tracy Sturdivant Brooklyn
To the Editor:
Re “Losing Steinem and the Freedoms She Fought For,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, Sept. 6):
It was around 1995, and Gloria Steinem had come to speak to a large crowd in Minneapolis. I took the eldest of my three daughters with me, who was 15 at the time.
She listened quietly and at one point turned to me and said, “Mom, she sounds like you!” I responded, full of pride: “No sweetie, I sound like her. She’s the original.”
Jump ahead to today, and that daughter is one of the founders and the head of a successful company started by women. Her two younger sisters aren’t doing too badly either.
Janice Linden Kalin Minneapolis
A Playbook for Reducing Gun Violence
To the Editor:
Re “Murders Fall in a City Long Scarred by Violence” (front page, Aug. 20):
I have spent my career as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore running toward gunshot wounds. In recent years, I’ve watched something remarkable happen: Firearm injuries have fallen sharply.
The city did not get lucky. This reflects deliberate choices — sustained community investment, evidence-based policy and one tool that gets far less attention: cutting off the supply of guns that are often used in crimes.
In 2022, Maryland banned the sale of untraceable ghost guns, which were flooding Baltimore. The city sued both the nation’s largest ghost gun manufacturer and a dealer that kept selling its kits. Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, where I serve as the board chair, was part of the trial team.
The manufacturer agreed to stop selling in Maryland, settled its case with Baltimore for $1.2 million and has since gone out of business. Last year a jury ordered the dealer, Hanover Armory, to pay $62 million. After Hanover appealed the verdict, the city agreed in April to settle the case for $2 million.
In the hospital’s trauma bay, we find the source of the bleeding and stop it. Baltimore did the same thing. The playbook exists. Other cities should use it.
Joseph Sakran Baltimore The writer, a survivor of gun violence, is a trauma surgeon and the executive vice chair of surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Curbing A.I. in Schools
To the Editor:
Re “Nation’s Two Largest School Systems Restrict A.I. Use After a Push by Parents” (news article, Sept. 4):
I am pleased that the New York City Department of Education has decided that artificial intelligence tools will be off limits to elementary and middle schools. But for those of us who have spent our careers helping young people develop cognitive skills, this yearlong ban doesn’t go nearly far enough.
I’m a public high school English teacher in New York City, with more than 20 years in the system, and what I see happening with my students’ writing scares me.
In the Department of Education’s Google suite of programs, A.I. tools are deeply embedded. In fact, Gemini cannot be disabled at all.
Even the most well-intentioned students will struggle to avoid A.I. assistance if a colorful Gemini icon is hovering at the top of their document. I recently called the department’s help desk. After 30 minutes of troubleshooting, the nice young man told me there was no way to remove the Gemini tool from Google Docs.
Why not?
Emily Fink Brooklyn
The post Keep Lighting the Torches That Gloria Steinem Lit appeared first on New York Times.
