In his column “The politics of a BLS education,’’ Alex Beam contends that to address violations of civil rights at Boston Latin School would be to “coddle’’ its students and waste “vast resources of administrative time and money.’’ His condemnation of US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s efforts questions the value of students of color at BLS and minimizes their concerns about harassment.

Beam compares BLS (negatively, one assumes) to universities such as Yale and Brown that “obsess’’ about their status as “safe spaces.’’ Yet allowing students to feel safe at their public primary and secondary schools seems to be an obvious and uncontroversial goal for our education system.

There are many initiatives I wish my tax dollars didn’t fund; protecting the civil rights of children is not one of them.

Kate Murray

Milton