As a Texas resident and an alumnus of the University of Texas, I can attest that Jon Cassidy’s dreary assessment of the situation there is totally accurate (“Scandalous Education: UT’s War on Standards,” Correspondence, June).  Sadly, Cassidy’s exposé merely scratches the surface of the transformation of UT into what he aptly calls “Berkeley South.”

Chronicles is to be commended for helping to highlight the state of decay—not only at the University of Texas, but within the state’s legislature and even the governor’s mansion.  Cassidy correctly points out that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has replaced Rick Perry’s reform-minded regents with defenders of status quo cronyism.

If this can happen in the nation’s most conservative major state, it can and will happen everywhere—unless we resolve to stop it.

        —Mark Pulliam
Austin, TX