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tomorrow's weather
The University Daily Kansan
Rainy with a high near 48 and a low near 29.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2000
Sports: Nebraska dominated Kansas in the second half yesterday, pulling away for an 80-67 win.
See page 12A
(USPS 650-640) • VOL.110 NO.113
Inside: The 51st Rock Chalk Revue opens tonight at the Lied Center.
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Men need not apply
Landlord admits to discrimination
By Dan Curry and Heather Woodward writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writers
Posted on a hallway door inside the apartment complex at 1530 Tennessee St., a green sign proclaims that owner Leland Lemensany does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, age or sex.
The sign is wrong.
At $365 a month, the price isn't bad for just being down the hill from the University of Kansas campus. The rooms are nice.
But no men need apply.
"I have right to discriminate," Lemensany said. "My blood and sweat is in this building."
Lemensany, who lives at the complex, is the only male resident. The other apartment is empty.
And no cooking with garlic, according to the lease.
"I know who I get along with," said Lemensany, who rents 17 apartments in his 19-unit complex to women. "I get along with females."
At least seven women have either departed or plan to leave 1530 Tennessee St. because of problems with Lemensany, they said.
"I'm not going to live here anymore," said Emily Mamalis, Prairie Village junior.
Mamalis and the other tenants all claim that Lemensany pressured them not to have their bovfriends visit.
"I'd been there like 10 days when he started talking to me about deadbeat boyfriends," Malamis said.
Lemensany's lease states that no guest or combination of guests may stay for more than five days or nights per month.
It also spells out Lemensany's right "to refuse to rent to anyone who has a friend already living in the apartment," and forbids cooking with garlic.
"He told me he was going to call the cops on me for using garlic," said Karmel Davis, a former tenant and 1995 KU graduate. "That's when I got a lawyer involved."
Besides cooking with garlic, Davis said that in protest of the garlic ban she had placed garlic cloves in the hallway plug-in air fresheners.
Davis and Lemensany mutually terminated the lease, and Lemensany gave back her full deposit.
Discriminating on the basis of sex is prohibited by the Lawrence Housing/Real Properties Practices and Kansas Fair Housing Act.
But for the past two and a half years, only women have lived at
"I know who I get along with. I get along with females."
Leland Lemensany
Lawrence landlord
the building.
If a complaint were filed against Lemensany to the Lawrence human relations department, the human relations commission would conduct an investigation into the matter, said Toni Wheeler, a Lawrence human relations specialist. If the allegations were found to be true, the landlord could face a fine up to $10,000 for a first offense.
Lemensany said that he had rented to men in the past, but they had not taken care of the apartments the way he wanted.
"I do have rooms I let males live in," Lemensany said. "They're not as nice as the ones I let women live in."
At present, those rooms are occupied with women anyway, he said.
"I don't discriminate," Lemensany said. "Not 100 percent, 80 percent probably."
Lemensany said he wants to keep his apartments nice and the conditions quiet at his complex, so that he and his tenants would have a pleasant place to live.
"My tenants love it here," he said. "It's a safe, quiet place."
Go fly a kite
Sam Railbeck, Peculier, Md., senior, flies a kite near Fraser Hall. Strong winds whipped across campus yesterday. Photo by Jamie Roper/KANSAN
It'sTEATime
Jeff O'Neal, Lawrence senior, draws a cup of *Melrose* at Edinburgh *t*a during an afternoon tea gathering. The social event is held each Thursday in the Kansas Union. Photo by Mark J. Daughtry / KANSAN
Students, faculty are invited to weekly Union get-together
By Ryan Devlin
writer @kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
ea is served at the University of Kansas.
If you long f:
If you long for a cup, some stimulating conversation or simply a little relaxation today, the Kansas Union is the place to be.
Every 3 to 5 p.m. every Thursday, the Union's Traditions Area on the fourth floor serves finger foods and different varieties of tea. But this is not a high society tea salon where the pinky fingers of the well-dressed elite are raised high and cups are sipped with a certain elegance. Most of the attendants wear jeans.
Susan Elkins, assistant director of organizations and leadership and organizer of the event, began the teas this semester as a way to bring the University community together.
"There's a snootiness that is usually associated with tea, but this is a very warm Kansas tea gathering where everyone is welcome." Elkins said.
Larkins said she got the idea for the Union teas from attending evening teas when she was a student at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. She said the evening teas always were polite and fostered stimulating discussion. She said the afternoon teas at the Union provided a similar atmosphere.
"I thought the Union would be
"There's a snootiness that is usually associated with tea, but this is a very warm Kansas tea gathering where everyone is welcome,"
Susan Elkins
event oraanizer
the perfect place for students, faculty and staff to get together and be comfortable and to interact on a more social level." Elkins said. "People are at their best when drinking tea."
Elkins said local businesses such as Brits, 732 Massachusetts St., and The Bay Leaf, 725 Massachusetts St., have provided teas for the event, and finger foods and desserts have been courtesy of the Kansas Union Food Service.
Gunda Hiebert, co-owner of The Bay Leaf, said they were happy to provide the tea for the first month of the event.
"We thought it was a very lovely thing to do," Heibert said. "We got some really nice feedback from faculty and students. Not only did they like the idea of having tea, they liked our tea."
For those who don't like tea, Elkins said lemonade or hot chocolate usually was provided.
Elkins said that more than 100
people stop by to sip each week. And the news has been spreading, both on campus and beyond the University's borders. Elkins said her husband, Jack Weinrock, whom she met at a similar gathering at the University of Michigan, received an e-mail last week from Harvard University commending the afternoon teas.
Now in its fifth week, the teas already have attracted a diverse group of regulars.
"I come here every week," said Jack Anderson, Lawrence junior. "I'm a really big fan of tea."
Anderson said he came to the tea gatherings to further his knowledge about tea.
"Americans have a really developed sense of coffee but a very underdeveloped sense of tea," he said. "This place is great because it educates people and expands their culinary horizons."
Jenna Coker, office supervisor for organizations and leadership, said she came every week for the fine art of conversation.
"This is a dying art," Coker said during last week's tea. "People don't sit down face to face and communicate verbally anymore. To go into a room full of total strangers and have conversations rarely happens these days."
As Coker sipped her tea, a man whom she did not know sat down across from her. She immediately greeted him, and they began to talk.
"See what I mean?" Coker said.
Bill asks for outside agency to study race as a factor in traffic stops
By Katrina Hull
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
On the empty House floor, two state representatives confessed their crime of color.
law enforcement targeting minor races For Wells, he said he didn't want to think that his race had mattered.
DWB charges evoke emotions ranging from anger to acceptance, along with a reluctance to talk about racial profiling
Reps. Jonathan Wells, D-Wichita, and David Haley, D-Kansas City, said they both had been stopped by law enforcement for DWB — Driving While Black.
"I hate to think this," Wells said.
"Because I'm not a negative thinker."
But Wells testified to the House Judiciary Committee that he had been stopped by police three times in Topeka because he was a Black American
"You know what I think your mistake was," Haley told Wells. "You should
Haley and Wells both support a Housepassed proposal that would require Kansas to hire an outside agency to study statistics on the race, gender and ethnicity of individuals stopped by law enforcement.
have had something that hid the color of your skin, like a tinted window. But a tinted window would probably get you stopped anyway."
"We're not saying it happens in Kansas," Wells said. "We want to see if police are doing it."
But Wells, a retired high school principal, said his own experiences didn't mean a statewide problem existed.
Haley said that racial profiling was happening elsewhere and that his own
"It's almost to the point where I don't drive in Johnson County after 9 p.m.," Halev said.
experiences as a African American didn't suggest that Kansas was an exception.
Haley, a real estate attorney, said he didn't know how many times he had been stopped for alleged traffic violations.
The American Civil Liberties Union reports that it's not uncommon for minority drivers to avoid certain neighborhoods or even plan extra time for being stopped when taking long trips.
Although Haley said he cared when police stopped him because of his race, Wells somewhat accented it.
"I don't care about them stopping me."
Wells said.
But determining whether police target minorities can be difficult, said Roscoe Howard Jr., professor of law.
"I do care," Haley replied. "It detains me for no reason and puts me at a disadvantage."
But Haley said that the discussion itself might be the start of the solution.
"If certain groups are being targeted and pulled over, the state needs to know," he said. "One of the problems is that people say it is not a problem."
As long as police think that they observe even a minor traffic violation, the Supreme Court says it won't consider other motives for making the stop, Howard said.
"The beauty of the entire debate has been that law enforcement in Kansas and nationwide begin to realize that society wants neutral reasons for traffic and pedestrian stops," Haley said. "We're trying to make a race, age- and gender-neutral society."
"The beauty of the entire debate has been that law enforcement in Kansas and nationwide begin to realize that society wants neutral reasons for traffic and pedestrian stops. We're trying to make a race, age and gender neutral society."
David Haley Democratic representative from Kansas City
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