To construct, of course, means to assemble from individual components. And in the building trades, deconstruction is distinct from demolition, in that the deconstructed elements are preserved intact for reassembly or for a different assembly elsewhere.

Furthermore Oxford tells us that the prefix de- is added to verbs to merely imply removal, but says nothing about the quality or logical integrity of the concepts removed.

Perhaps further clarification is in order from Prof. O’Meara, who, to my knowledge, is the only legal academic to have applied Derridean methodology to the circumstances surrounding Jeffrey Dahmer.

I feel compelled, however, to point out that the author uses the term “deconstruction” incorrectly. To deconstruct is not to analyze the structure of a text but rather to illustrate that the argument presented in the text ultimately collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

As a literary term “deconstruction” was coined by the great French philosopher Jacques Derrida. According to my dictionary, wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn,”deconstruction” means a philosophical theory of criticism (usually of literature or film) that seeks to expose deep-seated contradictions in a work by delving below its surface meaning).

As my countryman J. Hillis Miller once put it, “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently-solid ground is no rock, but thin air.”

Unless Professor Fallone’s point is that his op-ed piece makes no sense at all — and the text itself clearly contradicts such a reading — he has misused the term “deconstruction.”