Thursday, July 20, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers
Approach ASK warily
A proposed move by the Student Senate to join a statewide student lobby group, the Associated Students of Kansas, should be approached with caution.
Recently the board of directors of ASK passed a resolution recommending that the University of Kansas be allowed a 10-month provisional membership, subject to the approval of each member school and the legislative assembly of ASK. The offer would allow KU full voting rights for a reduced fee of $2,500.
The provisional membership, although costly, may be the best way to determine whether ASK would benefit KU enough to merit an expenditure of almost $6,000 a year, which is the cost of joining ASK on a permanent basis.
The disadvantages of joining ASK are as numerous as are the advantages.
Until now, the Concerned Students for Higher Education a KU lobby group, has represented KU's interests in the state Legislature. According to Mike Harper, student body president, CSHE has been effective in lobbying for such KU interests as women's athletics funding, a graduate fee waiver and the renovation of Watson Library.
Why then does KU need another lobby group?
Harper argues that ASK can be more
effective than CSHE in lobbying for state legislation that would benefit KU.
Hannes Zacherias, executive director of ASK, insists that the ASK would be more effective with the addition of KU's membership.
"We're very anxious to have KU join," he said. "If would give us state solidarity."
KU.
However, a question that KU student senators will need to ask when the proposal is presented to them for approval in September is whether joining ASK would be advantageous for KU.
advantageous to the group's lobbying efforts. Obviously the addition of KU to ASK would lend prestige and strength to the group's lobbying efforts.
Because KU would be allowed greater representation, based on its enrollment, KU's voice would overwhelm other schools and put KU in a position of leadership.
Senators need to consider carefully whether the ability to use KU's influence is worth the cost.
Unless an agreement is reached, the current contract between three postal unions, 20,000 and 10,000 postal workers, and the U.S. Postal Service will expire at midnight without a contract to renew it.
The unions and the Postal Service are deadlocked over three issues: wages, compulsory overtime and a no-layoff clause. Neither seems willing to bend a little and thus waits for the first strike, which is prohibited by federal law, although scattered strikes occurred in 1970 after negotiators working on a new contract failed to achieve a settlement by the deadline. The negotiations have turned into a crisis of management and labor, and no one, particularly the public, seems likely to win the fight.
BYRON JONES, president of the local letter carriers' union, says salaries must be adjusted to that postal worker's earnings are at least consistent with the american worker's wage increases.
The unions have asked for a $1,965 wage increase for each worker over the next two years plus increases covering the cost of living. Based on a projected annual inflation rate of 7 percent would amount to about a 13 percent annual increase from the $1,877 the average postal worker now receives.
"The Carter administration wants us to stick to a 5.5 percent increase," Jones says. "But the president should have increased 7.9 percent."
Everyone loses in postal dispute
Fraternity's neglect irresponsible
To the editor:
During September 1977, Penn House, a nonprofit Uway Agency serving the low-income community in Lawrence, was awarded the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at the University of Kansas. This pledge class was seeking a social service project to be completed by a group of about 20 fraternity members. A member of the group identified for the pledge class by Penn House on behalf of an elderly widow who needed some home repairs. A portion of the paint for this project was purchased from the philanthropy group and the remainder purchased by Penn House staff members.
During October 1977 about two-thirds of this painting project was completed by the pledge class members. The remainder of the project remains unfinished. The following contacts have been made with representatives since November 1977 regarding the completion of this project:
- Before Thanksgiving,
fraternity members assured
Penn House that the project
was finished before the
semester break;
- After three months of severe winter weather the fraternity members were again contacted by Penn House staff, and they stated that they were aware of the unfinished project
completed during spring break.
*During late April* the team faced a severe tracted by Penn House staff and he assured Penn House that the project would be completed within six weeks to left town for the summer.
- After final exam week,
Penn House was contacted by a
pledge class member, who
wrote the letter to Mr.
weekends" had been scheduled
during the month of June and
which would be required to
be completed at that time;
- Penn staff contacted the fraternity sponsor in the dean of men's office concerning questions about various times during late
and were sure that it would be completed during spring break;
Working intimately with a play naturally makes it more meaningful than simply seeing it, but I am struck by the critique of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" missed some important aspects. I would like to share some of the insights I have learned from "Our Town" for the past month.
Review misses powerful truths
Out of fairness to this elderly client, Penn House feels obligated to finish this project, immediately. The paint originally purchased to complete the project was left out of the fraternity room and was ripped by weather this past winter. For the project's completion, additional paint was purchased by the fraternity sponsor in the dean of men's office. By presenting this matter to William Balfour, the executive director of arrangements have been made for the immediate completion of the project.
- Other unsuccessful contacts since early June include the Inter-Fraternity Council and community fraternity sponsor
"Our Town" has stimulated within me an acute awareness of everyday life and of the importance of human relationships. Have you ever realized how little we really look at one another and of the importance of life, but we seldom stop to truly relish the little things or the people we come in contact with.
spring, and the fraternity sponsor also was unable to obtain a commitment to finish the project at a specified time;
To the editor:
that earth is too wonderful for you to realize, but I refuse to accept that only saints and poets can truly notice and appreciate them while they live. We can all if we open our eyes and pay attention.
Letters Policy
Emily has to die to discover
The experience of the "Our Town" can be a very creative one if you as audience members know the story. Allow your imagination to provide the visual images that are missing. If you can enter the make-believe reality of the town, you can elicitention to the "mundane" existence of its occupants, you might find your lives enriched with truths that are so simple and apparent they may be missed.
Lawrence special student
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and include the writer's name, address, and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the student's home town or faculty or staff position. Letters are not to exceed 500 words in length. The Kansan read all letters for publication.
Judy Kroeger
Many community service projects have been undertaken and completed by organized living groups affiliated with the Penn House. The Penn House has greatly appreciated many of these service projects provided in the past. In this instance, it is indeed unquestionably a success; its ability exhibited in seeing this project through to completion may influence Penn House and other local agencies to hesitate when asked to become involved with city-sponsored service projects.
Management should at least match that.
"Besides, we should not be made the scapegoats of the
I am hopeful that this project will be satisfactorily completed without further delay.
Cindy Hagg
Lawrence graduate student and
Penn House staff member
administration. The administration has no business putting its nose into this business."
Lori Bergmann
Editorial Writer
The Carter administration has made the postal negotiation a key test of its anti-inflation program, which seeks to halt further large wage increases won by unions in recent years. Sporadic enforcement action in programs in Iraq, however, has weakened it to the point at which many, including leaders of the postal unions, only scoff and then ignore it.
in compulsory overtime and a no-lavoff clause.
Jones supports the national unions' demands for a reduction
"The clause is an absolute must," he says. "If, for example, management does cut off five employees, it could cut off five employees. If we had no clause, it would reduce the number of employees below a workable level. I don't mean a lot of employees — go the real necessities would."
management
you give employees you
have anything for 'Busy work.'
The bitter quarreling between the unions and the Postal Service has increased the chances of a postal strike, but the national unions can call on them if the workers are in agreement.
"The national union can request that we strike," Jones said. "The unions reprisals if we disregarded the orders at the national level—
The Postal Service management retorts to such remarks that it had been carefully studying its proposals on the issue. It has had little time to carefully consider the unions' demands.
HARRIS SAYS he does not expect a strike in Lawrence even if the national unions approve one. He says he will strike who goes on strike or participates in a work slowdown.
fines or the pulling of our union charters."
almost one month old but management just presented theirs 10 days before the deadline. They have flat refused to negotiate on some issues, because given us no counterproposals."
"It is my duty to discharge anyone who does not perform as needed," he says. "But most people have to wait." law-abiding and wnp's strike.
A postal strike would cripple the country's communications system. But it also would cripple the cause of both the unions and the Postal Service by alienating the public, imprisoned by increases in postal rates and decreases in services.
Jones, who has worked as a letter carrier for 25 years, says, "I'm going to think a little bit before I check it all out on the disregard the union's word. They may give up and disband us.
Jones accuses the Postal Service of not bargaining in good faith with the unions.
"OUR PROPOSALS are
None of this bickering solves the real problem behind the postal negotiations: Neither side is willing to concede on the mail, nor are they concerned. And without any concessions one will come out a winner.
Bakke ruling is nebulous at best
By PAUL FREUND
N.Y. Times Feature
CAMBRIE> The incomparable Mr. Dooley described the scene in the Supreme Court when the Insular Cases were decided, around the turn of the century. They involved three judges, shipped in from the Philippines were taxable as imports under the Constitution. After the justices discoursed at length on whether the Conformity opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part, a little old man rose at the rear of the courtroom and addressed the bench. "Please, your Honor, he asked plaintive-ly, 'I get me lemon back?'
Hard cases often make fuzzy law. We do know that Allan Bakke is entitled to enroll for his medical course, but beyond that the court has given us little definitive guidance in determining whether the very judgment in favor of Bakke rested on a kind of minority preference: A minority of four, Justices Stevens, Stewart and Rehman quizzed me and thought that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act protected the Bakke, joining a minority of one, Justice Powell, who thought that the Constitution protected Bakke against the speculation system of the medical school at University of California at Davis.
But Justice Powell was prepared to accept a system that takes race into account as a factor in the decision process, parently, even numerical
goals where there has been previous illegal discrimination. The four other justices—Brennan, White, Marshall and Blackmun—who fully accepted the Davis plan undertook to summarize the bond of themselves and Justice Powell：“Government may take race into account when it acts not to demean or insult any racial group, but to remedy disadvantages cast on minorities by past racial prejudice, for example, that findings have been made by judicial, legislative or administrative bodies with competence to act in this area.”
BY NOT SPECIFYING the "nature of the remedy" or the "appropriate findings," this statement might appear incontestable. Nevertheless, Justice Stevens warned that only a majority can rigorously enforcement. Fortunately, clarification of this is not the only mission of the Supreme Court.
What does the case portend for the future? The degree to which race will continue to be decisive is not dependent on the weight actually given to this factor. On that crucial point there is no mandate from the court, nor could there be with the nuances and subtleties of the process and the ambiguities of the moral issue.
Aside from education, in the employment field for example, the standards set by the composite majority should be satisfied by the prevalence of past discrimination, the
urgency of reducing inner-city unemployment and the presence of legislative or ad- dministrative findings on these issues.
Of course, four members of the court have not spoken on those questions. For them, Justice Stevens explained that one of the statutes pre-loaded on the statutory issue VI—Title WI—it would be necessary to address the ultimate issue of the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. But the university did in fact prevail on the statutory issue, and the judge declined to commit themselves.
In future cases, if even one of the four uncommitted Justice Brewer's cases broadly permissive position of the four for whom Justice Brewer's case is broadly permissive in Justice Powell's opinion would no longer be crucial.
BUT ALL of this parsing, patching and predicting really misses the significance of the Bakke case. Its real meaning is that we are dealing with a complex problem whose outer contours can be drawn by judges but whose resolution lies within a wide spectrum of moral and practical considerations, ourselves, choices that must consider not only individual rights but the health of the society within which those rights are asserted.
The International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which has been enforced in 98 countries and has been signed by the United States, although not yet ratified by the Senate, provides: "States
parties shall, when the circumstances so warrant, take, in the social, economic, cultural and other fields, of means to ensure measures to ensure the adequate development and protection of certain racial groups or individuals belonging to them for the purpose of framing policy and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedom." Under the convention, as under the Constitution itself, transitional constitutionalism with a wide area is left open for moral and political judgment.
Two lines of questioning remain that reflect the predicament described by Reinhold Niebler as "moral man in an immoral society": How much disappointment of expectations or displacement of passivity among those who did not actively discriminate but who in some immeasurable degree have been the beneficiaries of a pervasive and long-standing system of discrimination; and how necessary, effective and appropriate is the particular function of the functioning of the particular enterprise-educational, industrial or governmental.
To expect the court to answer these questions for us we must ask ourselves the poet who implored his Muse to furnish him a theme: "Fool," said my Muse to me, "to thine heart, and write!"
Paul Freund is emeritus professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Court indecisive in Bakke ruling
N.Y. Times Feature
AUTHOR OF THE AHVEN COUN- Praise for the AVENUE Supreme Court's decision in the Allan Bakke case is not surprising. The case seemed to involve a clash of irreconcilable principles—equality of opportunity for all, regardless of race, and reparations, those who could not share equally in that equality because of society's past discrimination. Nor was the conflict simply one of abstract principles. An allocation of social goods was directly involved. As such, it would not be admitted to medical school, repatriation for some meant depriving others of an equal color-blind chance.
By GUIDOCALABRESI
The court, nonetheless, tried to avoid the difficult choice. Four justices affirmed the principle of color-blind equality on punishment issues and read the Constitution as permitting allocations based on race—not only when such allocations made up for past discrimination against individuals by a specific institution, but when they redressed general wrongs by the whole of society against a whole group. Justice Powell was the ninth, the Solomone vote. Justice Duffy is currently do when faced with irreconcilable principles. He judged.
After stating that no advantage can be given to individuals soley because they belong to groups that have suffered past discrimination, Justice Powell, in effect,
K
permitted such advantage, at least in university admissions. Diversity of background is crucial to education, and racial differences are part of the diversity universities are meant to offer, difference, by itself, does not yield diversity, and every individual must be free to compete for each place. But as long as universities do not tell us how race affects achievement, they are weighed to achieve diversity, they can accomplish results surprisingly like those mandated by the system to which Bakke objected. The court will not hold that Powell says, at programs established to achieve diversity; and if, in accomplishing diversity, universities happen to benefit subject groups to past discrimination—what is the reason a baby will be found to support similar programs in areas other than education.
EUTHANASIA IS PROHIBITED, for all life is sacred, but insanity is a valid defense to murder. Juries can acquit without explanation if they find the defendant insane or they choose simply to acquit a mercy killer. In Bakke, Justice Powell gives to universities a jurieskiller power. It is also critical to individual equality of opportunity or sanction of life—involitate. But it is compromised in practice through unexplained decisions of bodies. Justice Powell assigns the appearance of justice," Justice Powell says. It is only honest to recognize
The tension in Bakke steps from the 14th Amendment itself. The dominant, democratic discipline amendment would make suspect any consideration of race. But the amendment was part of a set designed to keep Blacks out of specific group-blacks. It will not do to agree with Justice Powell that this original theme is no longer valid. Its validity derives from the fact that the amendment creates the conflict Justice Powell seeks to obscure by delegating authority to the universities. Blacks as a group continue to be underrepresented and creates Justice Blackman suggests in his opinion, the Civil War amendments were enacted to permit redress of that group's disadvantage even at suburban and indian other groups.
RATHER THAN FUDGING, the court should have decided: No favoritism have on race or ethnicity is valid for members of most groups, regardless of general
that sometimes fudging is the best we can do. But we must save our dishonesties for when they are essential. In tragic predicaments, when irreconcilable fundamental principles are尖锐地矛盾 one value destroys the other, honesty (no less but no more fundamental than those other values) may be sacrificed. The issue is not whether subterfuge can ever be justified—it can in should have been used in Rakke.
past discrimination. The universalist thrust of the 14th Amendment bars this and should, even if done under the gueuse of achieving diversity in education. Disadvantaging schools may be open considered whatever its source, and this suffices to give parity for most groups. Special consideration for blacks—and pc.haps American Indians because, as the court notes, of their unique status, they are routed as long as they, as a group, remain subject to general disadvantages.
Such a decision would resolve the conflict by limiting the scope of the reparation theme of the 14th Amendment to that group for which it was designed and remains intended to mediate reduce the dangers inherent in reparation programs based on race. The universal theme of the 14th Amendment would be reaffirmed and would ultimately destroy the other when blacks, whites, and nonwhite others. Little discretion with respect to race would be given to unrepresentative institutions whose past use of discretion gives one little comfort. And, perhaps most important, the court would hold that, although sometimes necessary in truly tragic choices, are as tempting as they are dangerous.
Guide Calabresi, Sterling
Guide Calabresi, Sterling
of Law at Law
University, is the author most
known for *Chances*.
with Philip Bobbitt.