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Monday, February 6, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unengaged editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers
The Kansas Senate showed sense last week when it approved a bill that could help relieve the state's critical shortage of doctors. The measure passed on a 21-16 vote, and House backing seems likely.
The House, however, should leave the bill intact. Judging from the comments of at least one representative, the House may be ben on toying with good legislation in ways that are both politically unsound and fiscally unwise.
The Senate measure would grant tuition waivers to University of Kansas Medical Center School of Medicine students who agreed to practice in Kansas after graduation. Students who agree to practice in medically underserved parts of the state—rural areas that desperately need medical care—also would get $500 a month to cover living expenses while in school.
THAT MUCH IS reasonable. But Rep. John Vogel, R-Lawrence, is toying with making the rewards exorbitantly lucrative. He said he might prefer to give those who practiced in the underserved areas a bonus of $25,000 or $30,000 in addition to their regular salaries.
The logic behind Vogel's idea defies explanation. Doctors don't exactly rank at the bottom of the pole in annual income. Even those who practice away from Wichita, Topeka and City City, away from where doctors are least urgently required, manage to survive with more than 60% of their pay than both parties are promising relief to weary taxpayers, handling doctors $25,000 to $30,000 a year misses the mark in fiscal responsibility.
Rural Kansas must have doctors as soon as possible, but not by unnecessarily lining the pockets of Med School graduates.
Lawyer overinflates libel suit
Herbert Reid is a prominent lawyer. He was one of the lawyers who argued the landmark 1954 school desegregation case before the U.S. Supreme Court,
But now Reid is trying to inflate another case to landmark status—unwarranted status. And the curious cases not even directly involved in the case.
The case is a libel suit brought by Dear Scarpte, former chairman of the University of Kansas Medical Center's pathology department, against four former students and a former affirmative action official. The suit has been described by Reid, who has indicated a strong interest in the case, as well as in seeking an affirmative action itself. But that does not seem correct.
News accounts of the trial and its history have been confusing. The origin of the case dates to 1947, when children were more likely to be minority students, asserted that Scarpelli was discriminating against black medical students in grading and testing.
IN MAY 1974, a panel of KU faculty was convened to hear the charges that the students brought against Scarpell. No more than an hour into the proceedings, however, the students walked out. They said that they had no
John Mitchell
Editorial writer
voice in what was going on and that they were playing against a "stacked deck."
The walkout reduced their charges to nothing. In June the students received a letter telling them that the charges all had been dismissed.
Apparently they decided their walkout was unwise, because another complaint was filed with the dean of faculties and academic affairs at the Med Center. Perhaps as a result, Scarpelli filed the libel suit in February 1975.
The suit has since been in litigation. Meanwhile, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare launched an investigation into the complaints. The investigation determined that there was "probable cause" that the Med Center had "volted the Civil Rights Act's prosecution of a criminal determination." What actions were taken after the investigation did not hurt Scarpelli personally. He later appointed dean of faculties and academic affairs.
THE MED CENTER was the stage for this drama, and now its role is that of
audience. Scarpelli is currently a professor in Chicago. The four students are now doctors-in-residence around the world. Chester Hermson, is no longer with KU. Chester Hermson, is no longer with KU.
The legal counsel for KU's Med Center operations is David Dysart. He has said he is trying to keep the University's role as peripheral as possible. Several officials have been asked to testify, including John McCann, chancellor, David Waxman, and Chancelor Archie R. Dykes. Dysart has said he wants to keep KU out of the case.
He has a good idea. The libel suit has been overblown by cruders like Herbert Reid. The question of whether an official can be labeled in a complaint has become, in his view, a threat to the entire affirmative action program. It is not.
IN FACT, the original suit, which called for a total judgment of $275,000 from the five defendants, has been referred to the United States District of liae were involved, including one of malicious prosecution and one of conspiracy to violate the Civil Code Act. Among the charges against the plaintiff were involved, including one of malicious prosecution and one of conspiracy to violate the Civil Code Act.
Now what is left is a case of alleged libel. Scarpelli says the students defamed him in complaining to the dean. He said that he had "been charged with racism and the truth of those charges needed to be decided at last."
But the law of libel requires more than untrue allegations to have been made. It requires that those charges be made public and circulated. The simple fact that a charge has been made against someone in a normal grievance procedure usually does not open the door for libel.
THE CASE, therefore, is important in one way. It will test the limits of language used in complaints about discriminatory practices. KU and other universities presumably will be watching the trial closely.
But the crusaders say the case is one that all civil libertarians should support. Reid says the suit addresses freedom of speech and the right of officers to perform their duties and the validity of the Civil Rights Act. Freedom of speech always has been tempered by defamation laws. The rights of officers to speak freely have been more carefully worried complaints. And in view of the fact that an investigation was initiated and did uncover some probable discriminatory practices, one of the ways the Civil Rights Act was infringed
There is a case testing affirmative action programs before the Supreme Court—that of Alan Bakee. Small-import issues are not needed. All important issues are not needed.
IHP opponent details position
To the editor:
I was interested in your report of the Kansas City Forum on the Integrated Humanities Program last Sunday. According to your account, "Quinn said yesterday that when he agreed to treat me with respect, he had a verbal agreement with Barnet that no representatives of the press would be at the forum."
In fact, I have had no direct contact with Professor Quinn on this matter. I understood from the book that Quinn would request that his remarks be off the record and not be 'reported by the press'. I informed the organizers that I would not agree to take part in publishing an account of my remarks but that I thought Quinn had the right to make whatever request of the press he wanted for whatever reasons he deemed necessary. I am minister at a "debate" open to the press, his position seems to have changed. But
then, the previous "debate" was one in which he selected his own "opponent."
The public has the right to know about the nature of the integrated Humanities Program. he difficult questions of academic freedom, course content, allegations of religious content, and competence deserve thoughtful and careful discussion. I regret very much that Professor Quinn chose not to appear in an open, free, fair and unrigged situation. I am sorry he feels "an intellectual lynching" with such circumstances. Thine, The Rev. Dr. Vern Barnet OCA M
The Rev. Dr. Vern Barnet, OCA Minister of Shawnee Mission Unitarian Society
Uncle Jimmy had clay feet To the editor
As the University historian, I'm ambivalent about what should be done with the statue
of Ucle Jimmy Green and
friend. In one sense it seems
appropriate to move it to the
new law building, the伞塔
(the canopy) of a greater artist than whoever designed the building, and the presence of the statue on the lawn of the law school a certain tone.
And yet antiquarians will wish to remember that Uncle Jimmy was once dean of the law school. I have shown in my book that his standards of legal education were remarkably high, that in the 1880s and 1890s he neglected the school in favor of his own legal practice; that he always resisted efforts to make the law school a more integral part of the school; that in the school began its rise toward its present excellence and renown only after his death in 1919. On
the whole, Uncle Jimmy was an embarrassment to both the law school and the University. His appearance on 15th Street would be a reminder of the days of mediocrity.
But it's also true that Green loved his students and that they loved him. Since loved and loving deans are rare birds indeed, his memory has to be cherished, and he is preserved in a place that both has meaning to Uncle Jimmy and will not remind us of the nature of his law school. I tend to think that the proper place for the statue is somewhere in the south end of the football field, where Jimmy stands and far ahead of the idea of a distinguished law school or a distinguished University, Uncle Jimmy loved the football team. Green was once described as the "patron saint of KU football." Saints should be remembered where their spirits dwell.
Clifford S. Griffin Professor of history
Sexual tolerance should be extended to virgins
By ELAINE MORGAN
LONDON—"Do not," do,
Bernard Shaw said, "do to
others as you would they should
their their lusties may be
different."
One of the hallmarks of a free society is that it tries hard to accept this fact—that people's tastes do differ—instead of being bothered by it and trying to change it. Over the past 100 years, we have made a good deal of progress toward accepting it.
For example, it is no longer standard practice to stand over a child who detests porridge or cabbage or custard and insist that, of course, he likes it, even though he is not going down from the table until he has eaten every scrap.
There is a famous Thurber cartoon about a little boy who made a stand on this issue by proclaiming, "I say it is spinach and I say the hell with it." By contrast, I say he are crazy about spinach would usually about that he has got a case.
THE MOST striking example of this change of attitude is the increased tolerance of minority tastes and attitudes in the field of architecture, for instance, time when any deviation from the strict Victorian code would arouse feelings of shock and moral outrage; it would be punished by social ostracism and by fines and imprisonment.
Until quite recently, most deviant accepted this view of themselves. Their feelings were ashamed to abandon them, trample them, hide them and to simulate other feelings they didn't possess. They visited doctors and psychiatrists, demanding to know what was wrong and why that they should do to be saved.
The ultimate word of condemnation was "unnatural." Thus, homosexuality was called a crime by the authorities, regarded either as a crime to be punished or, by the more liberal thinkers, as a disease to be banished.
Nowadays, we are more
enlightened. Our permissive society now accepts that, as long as they are doing no harm to themselves or others, they have the right to seek sick or unnatural or pretend to possess "normal" appetites that are foreign to them. Those sections truly progressive have by now extended this degree of sexual minority except one.
FOR THE increase in tolerance has not been quite universal in its application. The trouble is that the range of experiences, responsiveness in human beings covers a very wide spectrum, at least as wide as the range of intelligence or of social competence. The upper end of this spectrum have benefited immensely from the new regime; they are enjoying a more relaxed and unhurried lifestyle that has been available to them for some centuries.
But the minority at the bottom end of the spectrum is going through a period of devaluation. It is they who are now being solemnly assured that they are, indeed, sick; they are, indeed, unnatural; that they urgently need some course of therapy that will bring them back to normal life and into community before they can hope to lead lives of happiness and fulfillment.
The word loosely applied to the alleged deficiency is an unattractive one. The word is difficult if it is a powerful anxiety-maker.
PEOPLE WHO are worried by it sometimes to hide their feelings or lack of feelings and they don't possess the ability to don't possess. If any of them should go so far as to say about sex, "I say it spins and I say the hell with it," their words are a little more concern. Because total abstinence is supposed to be bad for you, Chastity is tagged, like a packet of cigarettes, with the message that it can damage your health.
tifiable disorder like diabetes or anemia; the American sex research team of Masters and Johnson failed to detect any specific dysfunction to which could conceivably be applied.
If then, we take the usual definition of "sexually unresponsive" as is worth stating this is a very relative condition. A person is sexually unresponsive, not in any absolute sense, but as compared with the norm or is conceived to be the norm.
I think it is time we examine these ideas more closely. To begin with, there is no clean answer to the frigidity. It is not an iden-
A HUNDRED years ago the norm of sexual responsiveness in women was thought to be low. It was believed that there were great heights of excitement or ectasy, neither she nor her partner necessarily felt any sense of inadequacy or concern. This was because of complaint or anxiety. As far as they were concerned the operation was a success. If both of them thought so, it was a fault. There is no other valid criterion.
Today, the threshold of discontent and anxiety is very much lower—not because
people themselves have changed much but because their expectations have been raised so high and their beliefs about what other people are doing and experiencing have so much to offer. The beliefs in any case, are seldom quite in line with reality.
The Victorians were not so universally chaste and continent as their contemporary myths suggested. Our new Elizabethans are not so universally sexually athletic as our contemporary myths would have us think.
WE CAN BE pretty certain that there is now, as there has always been, a minority of men who find that, after a brief flare-up in adolescence, the interest in sexual activity increases. They reach the state when, as Kiplared言指 it, "a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."
They usually retain a keen interest in sex as a spectator sport—in the sense that they will turn eagerly to page three or four characters of nudes—but if they were given a choice between a night of love
and a ticket to the cup final, it would have to be Raquel Welch to make it anything of a contest and even then they would ask her for time off to view Match of the Day.
We also can be pretty sure that there is still a minority of wives who, on observing this slowing down on the parts of their spouses, would think to wives, "Thank God for that!"
THIS PERCENTAGE of the population has disappeared from contemporary literature and drama and the television screen. On TV, if a man's marital attire slackens, even for an instant, viewers can lay odds of 10% to 1 that he having children in-law or his daughter-in-law or his best friend's wife, or possibly with his own sister or his brother-in-law or both of them together.
No theory can be safely ruled out, except the theory that he's thinking about something else entirely, as people occasionally do, or that he has always secretly felt the pastime to be overrated, the way his little boy feels about custard.
It is very hard to assess the
size of this submerged minority. There is a blithe assumption that the great advances in sex education must, by this time, have reduced it to about one in a million, but this is based on a misconception.
WHAT SEX education has done is to immeasurably enhance the lives of people whose sexual appetites were strong but who were far too often, in more putational days, left thwarted, frustrated and upset. They were women—because they wanted a lot more out of it than they were getting.
It is less relevant to the minority who never did want more than they were getting. It would count the still smaller percentage who would prefer to have nothing. It not only leaves them out of account, it comes in asserting that they do not exist.
Every generation sets its own limits to its own credibility. Queen Victoria is said to have cut lesbians out of the law against homosexuality because she just didn't believe in lesbians, the way she didn't believe in gay couples and biscuits. She had far too much common sense. In these days, of course, what few people are gullible enough to believe in is virginism.
WELL, I believe in them.
They are still around, among both sexes, and they are not all under the age of 14. In New York, at the height of the last wave of women's lib, a lot of women from very different backgrounds and backgrounds are getting together and letting their hair down and telling each other things they had never dreamed they'd be able to tell anybody.
Naturally, of all it was stuff that Playboy or Penthouse would have given their eyewitness for. But there also a difference in the virgins and had both the wish and the intention of staying that way. There were enough of them to set up a small subsection of the club where people predictably found the idea hilarious, and others
consider it the final proof of what an unbalanced and unnatural lot the liberationists were.
Because nowadays, if anyone is rash enough to declare that the idea of sex has no attraction for them, it is automatically assumed that they must have nails, nasal passages, woodshed and, therefore, constitute a suitable case for treatment.
This disregards the fact that they may not want to be treated. They may believe, in the bottoms of their hearts, that they are all right the way they are and, as long as they do no harm to anybody, they are charged and prolixized and assured, "But you must like it. Everybody likes it. It's delicious."
QUEEN VICTORIA, on the other hand, would not have found such people either unbelievable or unnatural. Upper-class England in her time was particularly rich in virgin lands and books—bookish bachelors contentedly absorbed in studying birds or beetles or in writing sermons or in translating Lucretius, and intrepid spinsters taking round soup and blankets to the poor or sailing off to explore Africa or raising hell about the world. They have ever calculated how much their sublimated energies contributed to the country's success and prosperity.
Today we would not say their energies had been sublimated—we would say they had been inhibited in their ability to convince that, if you have the biological capacity to do something and yet don't
want to do it, then you are "inhibiting" your deepest instincts and this must be bad. But recent developments have shown that this is a very dubious argument.
One hundred years ago people were assured, just as today, that incessant indulgence in sex was dangerous and could result in mental instability. Sometimes it took much that it did have that result.
But I once lived for a while with a community of virgins in a large convent of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. He was an active—as teachers and nurses and cooks and cleaners and social workers and historians and musicians and so on—and they were just as varied and cheerful and warm-hearted and more cross-section as any other community of comparable size.
I AM all in favor of the increase in sexual tolerance; I am only concerned that the increased risk to both ends of the spectrum.
I would like to feel sure that a young girl could go to a party and reply to a sexual overture as causally as she might. I think that it is useful to cigarette, "No thanks I don't," and expect to have her statement accepted with as little comment. There are places where that situation no longer exists, so does the campaign for the sexual freedom of minorities is only halfway home.
Elaine Morgan is a writer. This article is reprinted from The Listener, a British publication.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily Announcements of Students on Friday, May 25 and July and April except Saturday. Sunday and biweekly. Subscription by mail or $10 annually. Subscriptions by mail are a $2会员 or $18 annual fee. A year outside the county. Student authorizations are required. Applicants must be a citizen of the United States for a
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