Tomorrow's weather
The University Daily Kansan
Partly cloudy. Cooler with highs from 45 to 55 and a low of 38.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Sports: Things get going today in the Big 12 Men's Tournament. SEE PAGE 1B
Inside: Super Tuesday results pushed Al Gore and George W. Bush farther ahead of the other hopefuls.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2000
(UPS 650-640) • VOL.110 NO.112
SEE PAGE 3A
WWW.KANSAN.COM
By Dan Curry and Heather Woodward
Five landlords top list of tenants' housing complaints
Parched from the summer heat in 1998, Kyle Batten, Olathe sophomore, put a glass under the faucet of his kitchen sink.
He wanted a drink. He turned the knob, Rocks and brown water poured into his glass.
Off and on for a year, brown sediment came through the water lines in the house at 1915 Vermont St., managed by Property Management Services, 123 W. Eighth St.
Batten and his three housemates called their home the "Viper Pit."
The front door wouldn't shut. The house's two toilet would clog daily. On the living room ceiling, a quarter-sized brown stain grew to the size of a stop sign, dripping each time a person flushed the toilet — when the toilet was operational.
"I was just out of the dorms," said Hesse McGraw, another resident at the Viper
Pit and Olathe junior. "I was blind."
Existing legal remedies provide little aid to tenants such as Batten and McGraw, leaving them to cope with substandard living conditions that are onerous when they aren't plainly life-threatening. Often they are unaware of the resources they might employ to protect themselves.
Landlords have no economic incentive to help them. The city building inspectors look the other way.
And the city governing body, taking silence to mean all is well, leaves these tenants to fend for themselves.
Sometimes this situation dies in death. In 1997, University of Kansas student Daniel J. Hhamman died from smoke inhalation in his apartment managed by PMS. His smoke detector, at the time, was inoperable, in violation of city housing and fire codes.
The Lawrence Fire Department ruled
the fire an accident. PMS was not held liable for the smoke detector.
Ton violators
Housing-code violations include dangerous electrical wiring, broken plumbing, absent smoke detectors, backed-up sewage, rat or roach infestations and other conditions that are unsafe or unsanitary.
Property Management Services tops the list of the worst violators of Lawrence minimum-housing codes, based on a Kansan analysis of five years of city building-inspection records.
If a city building inspector enters a house and discovers code noncompliance, he can declare the unit substandard. The landlord would then have 30 days to make the required repairs.
However, because of extensions grant
ed by the Building Inspection Department, it takes on average 95 days to close a case.
Two landlords and three Lawrence companies that rent to students collected the most complaints. These complaints resulted in a visit from a Lawrence building inspector, who found multiple housing-code violations on each inspection.
Complaints were concentrated in the Oread Neighborhood, which is commonly known as the "Student Ghetto."
Property Management Services ranked first with 14 complaints in five years. The company manages about 400 Lawrence living units for other owners, according to estimates by the company's competitors.
An exact figure was not obtainable because Mary Pat Jacobson, owner and
See TOP on page 6A
Racial Profiling Part 2 of 3
Minor violations provide pretext for police searches
By Katrina Hull
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
If police want to stop a motorist, they probably can.
Kansas drivers can violate more than 200 traffic infractions from running a red light to having a noisy muffler, said Lawrence Police Sr. George Wheeler.
Even a minor violation gives law enforcement pretext to make a traffic stop. But police don't stop every noisy muffler, allowing for an officer's subjective judgment and potential racial profiling — the practice of targeting minorities for traffic stops. In pretextual traffic stops, the police use a minor infraction as an excuse to stop and search a vehicle.
"Racial profiling is doable because pretextual stops are admissible," said David Gottlieb, a professor of law who teaches criminal procedure.
dure:
Although the Fourth
Amendment requires police to have probable cause before stopping a motorist, Gottlieb said recent Supreme Court interpretations of the Fourth Amendment could provide a tool for law enforcement officers wanting to profile.
But Roscoe Howard Jr., professor of law who teaches criminal procedure, said the decision didn't give police an excuse to profile.
"What they are saying is that they are not going to look at what the officer is thinking when there was a legitimate reason for the search," Howard said.
In the case Whren v. Ohio, the Supreme Court held that pretextual traffic stops were permissible.
See RACIAL on page 3A
Editors note: This is the second story in a three-part series about racial profiling.
Tomorrow's story will discussion the awareness of the issue and will offer reactions.
College Assembly approves new policy
Extra major courses no longer require additional hours
By Mike Hoffman
College Assembly approved the proposal yesterday. The change will be effective immediately. Previously, students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences had an extra hour added to the graduation requirement of 124 hours for each extra hour they took in their malors.
Students working toward bachelor of arts degrees who want to take more than 40 hours in their majors now can do so without being forced to take additional hours to graduate.
"We thought it would be the fair thing to do since we don't put the same restriction on B.G.S. students," Sally Frost Mason, dean of liberal arts and sciences, said of students working toward bachelor's of general studies degrees.
CHANGES IN CLAS
Frost Mason said the elimination of the 40-hour restriction was a good move because many bachelor's of arts students had petitioned against the previous
Kansan staff writer
College Assembly also approved the following at yesterday's meeting:
■ a retroactive withdrawal policy that will allow students to withdraw from classes taken during previous semesters under extreme circumstances.
an increase in the minimum number of major hours required in residence from eight to nine, meaning students must now take at least nine of their major hours at the University of Kansas rather than at another college.
minors in anthropology, East Asian languages and cultures, linguistics, philosophy and socialoab
nonwestern culture status for African film and video
policv.
deletion of BIOL 413 as a principal science course
The new policy also includes a requirement that departments in CLAS cannot require more than 40 hours in a major.
Greg Simpson, professor of psychology, voted for the proposal. He said he was surprised more faculty did not show up — about 15 members were present to vote.
"You'd think that a major proposal like this would draw more people than there was," he said.
In other action, the assembly made a few revisions to the college's academic misconduct policy.
"We didn't make any major changes to it." Frost Mason said. "We just modified some of the wording so it would be more in line with the University's policv."
The assembly also approved a
new B.A. and B.G.S. major in literature, language and writing for the Edwards Campus, the Overland Park branch of the University of Kansas.
Bud Hirsch, associate professor of English and chairman of undergraduate studies, said the major was designed for older students who might be settled with families and careers, but who wanted to enhance their credentials or refine writing skills.
"If an undergraduate wanted to go to graduate school for English, he'd be better off getting the English degree now offered at the Lawrence campus," Hirsch said.
The new major also will have a broader focus. It will require one fewer English class numbered 300 or above than the Lawrence campus major requires.
Drug-related offenses now may prohibit students' aid
By Doug Pacey
writer @ kansan staff
Kansan staff writer
A new question that some students may not want to answer appears on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid this year.
Question No. 28 inquires if a student has been convicted of an illegal drug offense. If a student has never been convicted of an offense, he or she will mark the box with the numeral "1." Students who have been convicted would mark the box with a "2," said Barbara March, FAFA supervisor.
The new question is intended to stop
students
victed of drug-
related offenses
from receiving aid. It comes from the federal H i g h e r Education Act of 1998.
Call the FAFSA hotline, 1-800-433-3243
But some students don't think that is fair.
CONCERNED
ABOUT
QUESTION
NO. 28?
Visit the FAFSA Web site, http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/q28
"I think the question is a
If question No. 28 is left blank, the FAFSA will still be processed by the school and government, the U.S.
Department of Education ruled two weeks ago.
bad thing in that it is very broad," said Erik Goodman, Dayton, Ohio, senior. "It's one thing if you are convicted of having eight pounds of heroin in your car. But if you get busted for having a joint at a party that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't be a good student."
Those particular applications will be marked with a C-code, which means a comment has been made on the application, and no aid will be given to the student until the question is verified. March said.
The department said it would issue a warning in the Student Aid Report about leaving the box blank.
"...But if you get busted for having a joint at a party that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't be a good student."
The ruling was
in response to more than 100,000 applicants who left the question blank.
"We haven't had a lot of problems," said Chris Johnson, associate director of student financial aid at the University of Kansas. "About 5 to 6 percent of our applications have been left blank, but at some schools the number is as high as 20 percent."
Johnson said that he thought most students left the question blank by accident rather than omission.
March said there were some situations where students with drug-related charges still could qualify for financial aid.
Students who have been convicted of a drug-related offense before July 1, 1999, and have completed an accredited rehabilitation program can mark the box with a "i". March said.
If a drug offense has been charged against a student before July 1, 1999, and a verdict has not yet been reached, that student can mark the box with a "1," but the student must inform the University if they are convicted.
If a student has been charged after July 1, 1999, and no verdict has been reached, March said, the student must mark the box with a "2."
If a drug conviction has been removed from students' record, they can mark the box with a "1" too, said March.
Students who have questions but are uncomfortable talking about their convictions, are given the option of speaking to a representative or listening to an automated machine that can answer their questions.
The FAFSA is due April 1 at all Kansas institutions for priority consideration. Johnson said the University would not begin to distribute financial aid until April.
1
6