Recently, a video went viral on Sunday depicting Philadelphia Police Lt. Jonathan Josey II punching an unarmed woman in the face during the Puerto Rican and Latino Heritage Day at the corner of Fifth and Lehigh Streets.

The video showed the woman, who was “cited for spraying silly string at officers,” in the act before the subsequent punch was thrown.

There has been and will continue to be much debate surrounding this event, as there should be. Mayor Nutter is just one of many people who have spoken out. Some have discussed the tenuous line between authority and police brutality, like Executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Reggie Shuford, who said, “I was shocked when I saw the video of what happened. I saw absolutely nothing that justified the use of such extreme force to take this woman down.”

Others have busied themselves studying various idiosyncrasies in the officer’s past.

An interesting angle to examine is how allegations of excessive force affect police credibility outside of the afflicted department. For instance, does the Philly cop scandal affect the reputation of Temple authorities?

Naveed Ahsan can be reached at naveed.ahsan@temple.edu.

On Tuesday, Oct. 9, a Pennsylvania judge postponed the activation of the Voter ID Law until after the Nov. 6 election. No provision for the law’s fate after that date was established, however.

The Pennsylvania Voter ID Law and, more generally, voter ID laws across the nation, have drawn considerable criticism, often eliciting comparisons to previous voter limitations including restrictions on gender or race, literacy tests and poll taxes. Numbers have flown from both sides, and these numbers have also been looked at skeptically.

But I don’t want to talk about all of that. I have my own opinions about he Voter ID law, and they are rather strong. You might think that an opinion post would be the most opportune place to vent those notions, but I think there is another issue here worth considering.

When news of the law came out, Temple decided to update their student IDs so they fulfilled all the criteria the law established. This was a brilliant move that sought to avoid alienating any college student voters, a demographic which already is known to be ambivalent towards voting.

Now that the law won’t apply, we shouldn’t view Temple’s actions as in vein. The university acted swiftly to protect the rights of its student body. It should – and has within the editorial pages of The Temple News – be commended for its actions. When a hurdle to voting was presented in front of the student body – no matter what the intended severity of the onus – Temple acted to ensure that its constituents had a voice outside of the classroom, as well as within it.