Hot Under the Collar

I was dismayed to read in “Sweatshop Exhibit Has Nowhere to Go” [July 15] that the Smithsonian sweatshop exhibit will not be coming to Los Angeles because of garment industry pressure.

It was an exhibit I was looking forward to since I can’t afford to go to Washington, D.C., to see it. For Isle Metchek, executive director of the Los Angeles-based California Fashion Assn., to say that she feels vindicated is ridiculous.

This is not the first time that atrocities have happened in the garment industry. To suppress such an exhibit is tantamount to censorship. The exhibit would have been such a great educational tool, and museums throughout the country should welcome such an exhibit rather than be dictated to--albeit indirectly--by the industry. It’s a sad day when institutions of learning self-censor themselves for the almighty buck.

THOMAS VERCHER

Arts Commissioner of Pasadena (First District)