CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, November 15, 1994
Survey will look at Lawrence housing
By James Evans
Kansan staff writer
Water slowly drips from four spots on the ceiling in the bathroom of Jill Hopp's apartment.
"It makes it very uncomfortable to go to the bathroom," Hopp said. "It drips on the toilet."
A bucket is set on the floor, and another is on a shelf above the toilet to catch the rust-colored drops that fall steadily, said Hopp, Elmwood, Neb., senior.
She said her landlord initially addressed the leaky pipe by having a plumber replace the pipe. But the leak persisted. Hopp said that she had called her landlord two times after the plumber initially fixed the pipe, but he still had not fixed the leak.
Off-campus student housing problems such as Hopp's will be the focus of a survey that Student Senate's Student Rights Committee will begin this week, said Mark Galus, head of the committee.
The idea to conduct a student survey of rental property, Galus said, came out of the concern that students were living in apartments that were inadequately maintained.
"We just want to ensure that students are satisfied with the property they are living in." Galus said.
The survey is part of a project that will help indicate the overall quality of a rental property and the quality of the management overseeing a property, he said. Members of the committee this week will be going to several popular student apartment complexes to ask students about their rental experiences.
Some of the questions that students will be asked include:
Do you feel that your residence has any problems relating to health and safety?
Once contacted, how long does it take for your landlord to make repairs on your residence?
Are you satisfied with the services that your landlord provides?
Galus said the second step of the project would be to make a printed listing of the surveyed rental property, which would be made available to students. He said the listing would give ratings of health and safety standards of property, prices of rental property and an overall rating of landlords.
"It's all to protect and enhance stu
dent rights." Galus said.
The survey will help students identify which rental properties in Lawrence are most suitable to rent.
The survey information also would help the committee assess whether it should recommend to the Lawrence City Commission that mandatory inspections of rental property be done on an annual basis, Galus said.
The initial survey questions are supplemented by questions that ask student renters whether they are aware of their rights as renters.
Some of the questions include:
Some of the questions include:
Are you aware that the City of Lawrence (through the department of Building Inspection) will come to your residence and inspect any problems, thereby forcing the landlord to repair problems?
Are you aware of your rights under the Kansas Residential Landlord and Tenant Act?
Main points from Kansas' landlord/tenant law
The landlord's responsibility is to provide the tenant with a safe, habitable place to live that complies with building and housing codes. The landlord also should make needed repairs to property in a reasonable amount of time and manner.
Legal experts advise that tenants and the landlord take a joint inventory of the rental property and put it in writing.
Kansas law does not allow tenants to make repairs and deduct costs from monthly rent.
Should tenants fail to pay the rent, the landlord cannot lock out tenants nor physically remove them from the property.
A tenant's property can sometimes be held by the landlord during the move-out period. If the rent is 10 days late in paying the rent and the tenant has begun moving out, the landlord can assume the remaining property has been left.
Source: Kansan staff research
Julianne Peter / KANSAN
Eric Fenion, Chicago senior, videotapes the piece. The two will reverse roles next week for their assignment so each can get practice on both sides of the camera.
Supreme Court rules on free-speech
The Associated Press
KANSAN
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has revived a New York college's effort to oust a professor accused of making an anti-Semitic speech as the head of its Black-studies department.
The court set aside rulings that said City College of New York violated Leonard Jeffries' free-speech rights by removing him as chairman.
The justices ordered the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restudy Jeffries' case in light of their decision last May that gave public employers greater freedom to fire employees for the things they say.
Jeffries' dispute with City College of New York dates back to a 1991 speech he gave at a Black cultural festival in Albany, N.Y. In it, he accused Jews of financing the slave trade and said Jews and the Mafia conspired to belittle blacks in the movies.
Jeffries also made unflattering remarks about some Jewish colleagues.
Officials at the college, which is a member of the state-run City University of New York, removed him from his post as department head, but he remained a tenured professor with
no loss of pay or benefits.
Jeffries, who is African-American, sued. A federal judge ordered the school to reinstate him to his three-year post as department head. Despite describing parts of Jeffries' speech as "hateful, poisonous and reprehensible," the judge awarded him $360,000 in punitive damages.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that school officials had violated Jeffries' rights and that he should be reinstaled. But the appeals court set aside the punitive-damages award and ordered a new trial on that issue.
Past court rulings have established that government employees cannot be disciplined for speaking out on matters of public concern without proof that they impaired the efficiency of government operations.
The 2nd Circuit court, in its ruling last April, said college officials had provided meger evidence at best that Jeffries' speech had had any real disruptive effect on the school's operations.
action, state Attorney General G. Oliver Koppell said the court had recognized "that universities should be permitted to weigh the impact of offensive and bigoted conduct of high-level administrators on the university community."
Lawyers for New York argued that the appeals court ruling forces a state school to retain, in aposition of leadership, a person who has engaged in hate speech.
agreed to decide in a Texas case whether people must pay income taxes on back pay and damages they receive by using their employers over alleged age bias.
In other matters yesterday, the high court:
ruled, by a 5-4 vote, that injured workers, and by extension passengers, can sue a subsidiary railroad of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in federal court.
After learning of yesterday's
The court said the authority is vulnerable to such lawsuits because the two states that created it are not required to pay its debts.
■ said it will decide whether courts may second guess the U.S. attorney general's decision to shield some federal workers from being sued over injuries they allegedly caused.
- turned away the appeal of a German woman who says she's the rightful owner of a Claude Monet oil painting that apparently was stolen from a castle during World War II.
Freshman charged in beatings
By Manny Lopez
Kansan staff writer
A Leawood freshman was arrested Sunday afternoon and charged with aggravated robbery, burglary and theft for his involvement in two separate incidents over the weekend.
At about 11 p.m. Friday, Troy Guzzo, 20, and an unidentified man attacked a KU sophomore who was walking in front of Watson Library, said Officer Cindy Alliss of the KU police. He was jumped from behind, beaten and kicked several times, she said. Guzzo and the other attacker stole a baseball hat, a wallet and cash, valued together at $60.
The other suspect in the attack was described as a white man, about six feet tall and about 160 pounds. He is in his 20s and is not a KU student, Alliss said.
In another incident that involved Guzzo, a KU sophomore was attacked Saturday at about 4 a.m. in the parking lot east of Templin Hall. Guzzo and Kelley Rodman, 20, Stillwell, were arrested on Sunday for their involvement in the Templin attack, Alliss said.
The two men saw the KU student walking to his car in the parking lot and asked him for directions to Ellsworth Hall. When he pointed in the direction of the residence hall, Rodman punched him. The student then dropped his briefcase and ran.
According to police reports, Guzzo and Rodman stole the man's briefcase, which was valued with its contents at $148. Those items were recovered Saturday afternoon.
Guzzo and Rodman were not taken into custody and are scheduled to appear in Douglas County District Court Nov. 30.
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