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Tuesday, April 18, 1978
University Daily Kansan
Comment
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Unagged editorials represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial staff. Stuffed columns represent the views of only the writers.
Fund groups on merit
Talk of scouting Student Senate funding for certain foreign students' groups is at once understandable and disturbing. The question turns on whether student money should support the Iranian Students Association and the organization of Arab Students, which recently displayed a talent for not allowing a man to speak his mind.
The Senate couldn't decide what to do with the budget of the International Club, which serves as an umbrella organization in disbursing funds to the ISA and OAS. The matter was referred to a joint Culture and Finance and Auditing Committee for further study.
By ordering further scrutiny of the International Club, the Senate showed sense. Any group that heckles international figures ought to be subject to special study before it gets student money. In but sending the ISA and OAS a message, the Senate also contradicted its expressed desire to be able to consider the funding of campus groups that are substantially oriented toward religion, politics or expression of sexual preference.
SUCH CONTROVERSIAL groups are currently ineligible for Senate consideration of funding. That's wrong. Why should groups be denied money just because they happen to have partisan or unpopular aims? How the groups express these aims is entirely different from whether they merit student activity fees, but the fact that the aims run counter to most students' shouldn't be at stake.
The Senate last fall went on record as favoring a change in the way campus groups get Senate funding. In doing so, senators pointed out the unfairness in discriminating against groups simply because of their political activities. Will the same degree of tolerance be extended to the International Club, which is obviously a political group?
Troubling the First Amendment is serious business. If the Senate panel uses that as a reason for cutting off ISA and OAS money, the decision is understandable. But such actions should never be taken simply because of what the groups think.
Rabin arguments continue
Letters
To the editor:
As an American student who attended Rabin's lecture, I think that the protest, although it may have robbed Rabin of his right to free speech, was nonetheless justified.
In the past, several people have been invited to the University of Kansas to speak in favor of Israel's cause. They were not brought forth any speakers with opposing viewpoints. When the Arab students tried in 1976 to bring a speaker to the campus, they were unable to attend funds from the University.
I think that when both sides of an issue cannot be presented, that is not freedom, it is brainwashing—an action that the Kansas has frequently participated in. Given enough attention, we—the American public—will start believing it. We will have nothing to make us believe otherwise. Regardless of how poorly conducted the demonstration was, no other alter-
I was amazed at Rabin's timing. Was it coincidence that he visited here at a time when Israel's popularity was at an all-time low after its involvement in Lebanon?
By not informing its readers of why the speech and the disturbance occurred, the Kansan did not do its job as a newspaper. It was more concerned with glamorous editorial head pages, so it chose to merely spew forth crap about the author. Habilly rebutted. It seemed that none of the editorial writers cared to investigate the whys of the protest.
Not only that, but apparently there are not any history or news buffs on the Kansan, which explains why Rabin got by with several misleading statements. There had been no capital punishment in Israel in the past 30 years. Such a statement is misleading. In 1960, Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal, was extradited from Germany and tried in Israel, then hung.
The administration's planned punishment of only anti-Zionist demonstrators is absurd because both Zionists and anti-Zionists were at fault in the demonstrations. Chancellor Dykes should have warned that there would be possible consequences of their actions during the several opportunities he had before the protest!
The Kansan shows by its reporting that it supports the First Amendment for only a selected few.
Madhup Joshi
Madhup Joshi Prairie Village senior
Dykes abdicated leadership role
To the editor:
What is one to think of the leadership and character of a university's graduates of international renown to its campus to speak, has its chancellor there on the stage to proudly introduce him and then make him an example than an hour the blatant, rude disruptions and demonstrations that make it all but impossible for the audience to hear the words.
like the demise of the University's pride in being a forum at which controversial issues are heard and weighed?
that the insolent, raucous,
unuly minority's right to
disrupt was paid more respect
by the leadership's acquiescence than was the hallowed
principle of freedom of speech
leaves me deeply saddened, and
a not a little ashamed.
while all the while the chancelor sits on the stage and presides over what, in the course of the evening, seems
Our leadership surely abbreviated its role that night. Our chancellor might have with dignity, after but a few moments of the undermining of the public's right to hear, returned to the microphone just long enough to let it be reaffirmed, perhaps by paraphrasing the ringing words of Voltaire, that whereas one may disagree with everything being said, we will defend to the death our speaker's right to say "Mob rule and terrorism were fitted with more respect that night."
Hilda Enoch
801 Louisiana St
Editor's note; the Kansan appreciates the response of its readers to the circumstances surrounding the speech of Yitzhak Rabin, former Israeli prime minister that neglected that pausesations have presented publication of all letters to the editor on the subject. The 21 letters that have been printed reflect the proportion of the overall amount of mail received: 1.7 to 1 against the protests. The Kansan considers the subject to have been expressed and no new letters about the speech will be accepted unless they reflect viewpoints that have not been previously expressed.
Bill helps rural doctor shortage
A prescription for rural Kansas' acute physician shortage became law Friday when Gov. Robert F. Bennett signed a bill designed to keep Kansas-trained doctors in the state after they have required their residency training.
When baldly stated, the aim of the legislation sounds vaguely parochial. but the measure is the result of more than 30 years of effort by proponents of rural health care.
An unofficial outcourt that will spur students' incentive to take part in the scholarship program is the announced intention of the Kansas Board of Regents to increase tuition for the four-year University of Kansas Medical Center.
THE LEGISLATION that became law Friday was primarily the work of Rep John Michael Hayden, R-Atwood. Two types of medical school scholarships are created by the bill. One would grant a student the opportunity to add to payment of tuition. There is a stipulation that the student practice medicine in an area of Kansas with a
doctor shortage. One year of practice is required for each year of the scholarship.
The other kind of scholarship pays tuition only for students at the Med Center. Students are required to practice one year for each year of the scholarship, and those who have taken anywhere in the state. Nonresidents are eligible for the scholarship program.
The argument that any program resembling the one now law creates a state of involuntary servitude has lost ground. There is no requirement that a student accept a scholarship. It is likely that many students will unabashedly accept scholarships with the expectation that they will receive a fair price for a year of medical school training—training that not only is often altruistic, but also is undeniably a
profitable return on investment for the future physician.
STUDIES OF the demographics of physicians show that they are apt to remain in the region in which they begin their careers.
Although Kansans are blessed, especially in rural parts of the state, with healthy natural environments, the scarcity of adequate health care in thinly populated areas has plagued much of the region. We have seen migration patterns in Kansas recently indicated that among those migrating to smaller towns, young professionals command an increased share of Kansas rural townships. The measure pushed by the department is based on that trend and underwrite support of it without creating inequitable subsidies.
The new law outlines the formation of an advisory board filled by specialists in different medical fields. After reviewing a region's medical services, the board reviews the data and identifies areas deemed underserved and suggesting steps to remedy a
scarcity of physicians. A single point of authority and accountability for the program is assigned to the secretary of health and environment.
GIVEN THE proven scarcity of voters willing to carry the torch of the traditional family physician in rural America, it is unlikely that the measure will become an unwieldy administrative albatross around the state's neck.
That there is any need to induce physicians to serve in rural Kansas is curious. Clean air, an almost untainted natural environment and a reasonably paced style of the would appear to attract, rather than repel, physicians to the sleepy—by big-city standards—eites in the community that are true to their forehearers in stand self-reliance, stay reasonably healthy and complain little?
Whatever the reason for the shortage of medical care in rural Kansas, Hayden's measure appears to be an efficient and anunfluorous means of providing physicians for those who haven't migrated, along with the doctors, to the big city.
Those seeking abortions avoid obligations
To the editor:
This is a comment upon an editorial written by Steven Stingley regarding choice in abortion.
I also suggest that he concern himself more directly with the unborn child as well as its mother. He should refrain from suggesting that an abortion, which he assumes is a grave problem, has this problem. Surely there are lonely people in the world who grieve because they are unwanted and unloved. But
Stingley has difficulty determining whether the object of his concern is a violated woman or a mother, the two being distinct. I suggest the proper concept, honored through the ages, is that of a mother.
children are not born unlovable or despicable in themselves. The difficulty lies with the nature of love, love lost and nurture as they should.
The corrective to this sorrow of unloved children is the reformation of the hearts and wills of those whose "want" is to offer neglect or hostility, not the obliteration of the children. The human heart is not untouched, but should be a primary concern for all who consider the outrage of abortion.
Another difficulty Singley is has is pontification-his weakest case. I refer to the following sentence: "Whether
abortion is right or wrong is a moral question that must be answered only by the individuals involved." Draw a circle around that word "only"; now draw another circle around it. Next, ask yourself what is the reason for that word "only"; then verify that it appears as a scarecrow erected out of habits and superstitions so as to stampede the reader away from the heart of the abortion controversy. The effort is to discourage the reader from considering the evil and, if so, whether the reader should call upon himself and others to oppose it.
If these two questions are declared taboo, then there is no discussion and the dilemma is settled by fiat. It is largely
because many decline to be stamped by superstitions and taboos of our age that the issue remains a controversy.
Abortion advocacy is often couched in the current terminology of rights. We do well to remember the insight of Dr. Bernhard Stern, who says obligations come before one's rights. Wherever we hear a clamor raise the arena of rights, we should pause to note any silent pleas for action against an obligation. So much of the effort to procure abortions is not meant to secure rights but rather to avoid obligation. So much of it stems from a terror of wholeness of true freedom.
Gayle D. Larkin Jr.
Lawrence graduate student
Gayle D. Larkin Jr.
criticizing something they know nothing about.
As a journalism student and a Sunflower Hostess, I am embarrassed to be in any way associated with this publication or its writers. I think strongly that the opponents of this legitimate and worthwhile organization, including Elizabeth Banks, Larry Bornstein, and the author of the editorial, are simply complaining to hear themselves complain.
Heed women's cries of discrimination
I am insulted that my personal integrity and the value of this organization are in question. The innocuences and implications in the column are simply another excuse for the publication of journalism often times practiced by members of the Kansan staff.
For women at the University of Kansas seeking opportunities equal to those of their male counterparts, athletics seems to be a logical place to funnel their efforts.
Unequal opportunities can be more easily and tangibly seen in microcosm on the track or in the gymnasium than in other, more complicated social structures. Athletics is one of America's most hallowed institutions. If women can make it possible they will establish examples for the rest of society.
But just like many other social institutions, Athletics has with a status quo that is rooted in tradition. It is not simply a sport.
THE STATUS QUO is hard to buck. Ask any woman at KU who has worked and lobbied for progressive changes in KU's athletic programs.
Orskum Ganzer
Gasper isn't a student at KU. In fact, she isn't a student at any college or university. She hasn't been involved in KU's somewhat futile struggle to get additional state funds for improving the plight of women's athletics at KU and the other Regents' institutions.
It is useless to defend each of our duties as Sunflower Hostesses because there always will be a narrow-minded, minded person who thinks truth only what they want from their fallacious interpretation.
Gasper has had a bitter taste, however, of the subtle, yet powerful, opposition that women have in many ways.
She is a ninth-grade student at McPherson Junior High School, in the heartland of a notoriously crowded city. She is actively involved in junior high sports and is editor of the student newspaper.
ALSO, SHE thinks that girl athletes at her school are treated somewhat differently from boy athletes and that opportunities in sports are better for girls than for their male counterparts.
Steven Stingley Editorial writer
Gasper took her observations one step further by writing an editorial in her school paper critical of athletic opportunities for girls at the junior high.
The school's principal, Verne Young, noticed the editorial before it was printed and informed Gasper's newspaper adviser that the editorial couldn't be printed because there were inaccuracies in it. In other words, the editorial was censored.
Her observations probably sound familiar to women runners and drummers at KU.
Young eventually did say that he had re-evaluated his decision and would allow the editorial to be published if Gasper made two changes in it.
The mighty hand of sexism struck.
GASPER AGREED to make the changes because they only amount to adding the fact
that one of the athletics coaches for the girls had an assistant and did not coach the teams alone.
A simple and almost irrelevant mistake on Gasper's part.
What Gaspar was articulating by writing her editorial, and what probably made the school's principal react the way he did, is the fact that she insisted on playing for "students" that's "don't want to compete with and against boys."
"If you don't realize how unfair the girls at MJHS are being treated, maybe you better. They're just not being offered the advantages the boys at MJHS are sports program is just as significant as the boys."
"We want to be treated and recognized with equality," she wrote.
Gusper also pointed out discrepancies in the athletic programs, which included coaching, training and supervision.
ORIWUSLY, it was a stab at the school's administration, its handling of sports for girls and, particularly, accuracy that the principal didn't especially like.
By all indications, Gasper's gripe was a legitimate one that needed to be told. It is not a complaint that is confined to McPherson Junior High School.
Certainly it is slowly being recognized at the college level that women's athletics need a lift. It is a simple fact that women do not have the op-portunity, then that men have enjoyment for countless years.
I think that the Kansan editorial staff owes the 13 Sunflower Hostesses a sincere apology. Bets Peter
Women's athletic programs are lacking in human and physical resources; male sports continue to flourish with statewide financial and philosophical support.
NONE WOULD think that the provisions of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare's Title IX would spur changes in the handling of women's athletic programs and pressure school administrators across the state to stop sweeping actions against sex discrimination.
It is an imbalance that needs even more attention at it is getting now. It is an imbalance that demands open discussion by those affected and quick action by those responsible.
KU hostess asks apology
As the Title IX July deadline draws nearer, any school that receives federal funding—including such schools as Parm Gauper's—risks losing those students. Many schools remain in any educational program or activity.
And those in a position to do the changing, from junior high principals to state legislators, must listen to begin more carefully to the complaints of their staff who are experiencing the discrimination firsthand.
The only way this can be accomplished is by changing now which has been practiced for years, and the methods of doing so.
To the editor:
True, TITLE IX is perhaps too ambiguous and difficult to put into effect. However, it is not so much a matter of abiding by federal guidelines as of ensuring equal opportunity regardless of sex.
Concerning your April 6 editorial encouraging the abolition of the KUAC Sunflower Hostesses, I am shocked, but not surprised, that once again the Kanans staff is
Overland Park junior
A Pacemaker award winner
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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