This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The story "Utah scholarship bill stalls amid debate on IB international study program" (Tribune, Feb. 15) got me curious about the International Baccalaureate program and Sen. Margaret Dayton's inexplicable hostility to it.

So I went to IB's website. In its mission statement I perhaps found my answer: IB's "programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right."

Could it be that Dayton doesn't believe that other people, with their differences, can also be right? That she finds the very idea so threatening that she will do everything in her power to sabotage IB's operations in Utah and to tarnish its reputation by branding it "anti-American"?

Such anti-intellectual McCarthyism is disappointing in our elected leaders. I am confident that most other Utahns are secure enough in their beliefs and their identities to respect cultural difference and critical thinking, as IB encourages.

Shane Graham

North Logan