Rhetoric is a tool that your opponents have mastered. If you fail to learn it, you may continue to be surprised at your inability to effect change, no matter how logical your arguments.
(and to the people here who've downvoted me such that I've just burned up 8 points of karma for simply pointing out there was a logical fallacy in the letter and who clearly don't understand what a logical fallacy looks like if it smacked them in the face, have a happy new year and I weep for you)
The authors refuse to give up a student because it contradicts their core values as exemplified by several academic predecessors. There's no appeal to authority here -- it's their beliefs, held for presumably many valid reasons. Pointing out that these values constitute a long-standing tradition at Cambridge is not the justification on which the argument rests; it's merely a lovely rhetorical ornament.
(Let me add that construing the paragraph as a syllogism from premises to a conclusion is rather silly, even though Cambridge happens to be the birthplace of analytic philosophy. There's a thing called pragmatics, and the notion of argument being more than underlying logical form hasn't been controversial for 40 years.
Rationality ain't just logics.)
Business, even the computer business, is overwhelmingly about people, not computers. If you cannot communicate effectively with people, you're doomed at business, even the tech business.
> or simply pointing out there was a logical fallacy in the letter
The problem here is that you're just reading the text of the replies, but not "reading between the lines". It's not that the responders can't see a logical flaw. Instead, they're seeing in your responses a broken model of how to convince people. They're trying to draw your attention to this, but you've been remarkably resistant to it, focusing only on the logical content of the argument.
> who clearly don't understand what a logical fallacy looks like if it smacked them in the face, have a happy new year and I weep for you
Oh please -- weep for your own naivete. These histrionics make you look inexperienced and oblivious to nuance.
As of 1/1/2011, I quit.
I shouldn't gloat, as you seem to post interesting articles and comments, but I couldn't pass up this object lesson.
Rhetoric > Reason for the foreseeable future. It's okay. Just accept it, use it, and you can still make the world a better place.
Or ... fail to accept this fact and let reality break you and make you unhappy and/or ineffective.