Opinion
The University Daily Kansan
Laura Roddy, Editor
Sarah Hale, Managing editor
Kristi Elliott, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news advisor
Shauntie Blue, Business manager
Brad Bolyard, Retail sales manager
Matt Fisher, Sales and marketing adviser
Matt Valler, Technology coordinator
Wednesday, February 9, 2000
Jamie Patterson / KANSAN
Editorials
Kansan report card
PASS
Minimum wage increase — U.S. Senate votes to raise minimum wage to $6.15 during the next three years. That extra dollar per hour will go a long way toward your ever-increasing tuition bill.
get accepted at UCLA before this rule was changed?
NCAA regulations — New collegiate rules let schools decide which classes they will accept as college-preparatory. How did JaRon Rush
Lawrence Arts Center — New building for $6 million Downtown center set to begin this summer. Still no word from City Commission on whether beer sales will be allowed.
FAIL
School nurse funding - Lawrence school district may have to replace registered school nurses with lower-paid health care workers. Next: P.E. teachers will be replaced by college athletes completing court-ordered community service.
**Faulty Transformers — Boom! Last year, the University requested money to upgrade electrical systems around campus, but smart-guy legislators didn't take it seriously.**
Madonna — Material girl tries to prove she's a pop goddess by covering Don McClean's "American Pie." That'll be the day.
Funds for campus safety necessary
Let there be light — it's a matter of safety. The Campus Safety Advisory Board should go forward with a proposal to add more lights to areas on campus that are not well-lit, such as some parking lots.
And the administration should increase its commitment to campus safety by providing matching funds for the $2 campus lighting fee which, with the University of Kansas' potential contribution, should only cost students $1 after the current fee expires in fiscal year 2001.
Adding more light to our walkways and garages would increase the feeling, as well as the reality, of safety.
Areas such as the walkway between the Lied Center and Daisy Hill need to
The University should match $1 renewal of fee for more campus lighting, cameras
be more well-lit. The ability to see and be aware of who and what surrounds one is essential when it comes to personal protection. Without this visibility, students' abilities to protect themselves are being compromised.
To make an honest effort at improving campus security, other measures besides lighting also should be taken with the use of the lighting fee, such as putting cameras in the parking garage. Though some student senators think camera installation would
be senseless, their use also could deter property damage.
Maintaining funds for campus safety is important. However, students shouldn't have to foot such a substantial part of the bill simply for adding lights to areas of campus that desperately need them. If the University does not match the funds, it will send the message that security is a frivolity. University safety should be an option; it should be a mandatory priority.
In the same vein, if the University isn't willing to foot the whole bill, students should support renewing the campus lighting fee to $1 per student. That one dollar will be better than having no improvements made at all.
Kansan staff
Tara Alexander for the editorial board
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” — Oscar Wilde
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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How to submit letters and guest columns
All letters and guest columns should be e-mailed to opinion@kansan.com or submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Nadia Mustafa or Seth Hoffman at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924
Perspective
Mandatory fees nourish free speech on campus
No student should have to be subject to the tyranny of the majority on campus.
But for the last four years, five former University of Wisconsin-Madison students have been pursuing a legal decision that could have a profound impact on higher education around the
nation. Students at the University of Kansas should pay close attention.
Scott Southworth, along with four former Wisconsin law students, has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court with a claim that requiring mandatory student fees to finance student organizations that engage in political and ideological advocacy, activities or speech is a violation of students' First Amendment rights to free speech and association. Two lower courts already have ruled
Nadia
Mustafa
opinion editor
jonathan@kansas.com
that the constitutionality of mandatory funding is in question. The Supreme Court heard the plaintiffs' arguments in November and soon will hand down a decision.
It is hoped that the Court will recognize that the diverse distribution of student fees is a constitutional, necessary and integral component of higher education. Any other decision would be contrary to the purpose of the college experience.
If the Court rules in favor of Southworth and his gang, public universities across the nation may be forced to revamp their systems of allocating funds to student organizations, and surely, a few specific organizations would take the fall - minority groups, women's groups and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transsexual groups probably would be the first wounded.
Higher education is no longer solely textbook academics. Ideally, college creates a forum for the understanding of diverse views. It's crucial that students be exposed to different ideas, have the opportunity to chew on them, and then decide for themselves whether to swallow them or spit them out. Many students change some of their beliefs after attending college, or at least they broaden their worldviews.
This is a key step toward lightening the burden of intolerance and stereotypes that plagues us today. Maintaining an arena of varying perspectives is not unique to "liberal" universities, such as our campus or Wisconsin, and it doesn't only encourage that the Bible-toters learn about the queer community but also that the "Feminizas" give the Future Homemakers of America a chance
The average student doesn't have the time or resources to launch a fund-raising campaign for his or her organization. Without funding from student fees, many of these organizations will collapse. This could severely limit free speech on campus. Universities aren't necessarily democratic they are controlled markets of ideas. The cap
italist notion of the "survival of the fittest" is unrealistic and unfair in a university setting. Students should go to college to learn and to immerse themselves in various viewpoints, whether academic or otherwise. They don't go to school to lend for the resources to speak, gather and act.
In any case, the allocation of student fees at a university can be viewed as a parallel to the U.S. government's allocation of tax revenue. Most universities, such as this one, have a representative form of student government that decides where student fees go. U.S. citizens elect representatives and senators, and KU students elect student senators. U.S. citizens don't have the luxury of marking a checklist of programs to which they prefer their taxes be allocated, and KU students shouldn't either. Maybe Southworth and his colleagues should head to the nearest campus voting booth instead of complaining to a judge.
No one should buy the Wisconsin gang's guise of a mission to protect First Amendment rights. If they win this case, it will be nothing but a defeat for free speech and a victory for Southworth's own ideological purposes. Southworth, a member of the College Republicans and the Campus Crusade for Christ at Wisconsin, isn't being forced to commit sacrilege to his political or religious beliefs by indirectly supporting Wisconsin's International Socialist Organization or the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Campus Center. He is only paying his dues as a student - which gives him full right to protest at the Associated Students of Madison' (Wisconsin's student government) budget meeting each semester. If one follows the train of Southworth's argument, he would be supporting causes contrary to his own ideals just by paying tuition at Wisconsin, which is known to be a fairly "liberal" university.
Even if one doesn't agree with the argument that campus should be a nondiscriminatory public forum, the Supreme Court does, and legal precedent proves it. In a 1995 case called Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, the Court ruled that the use of student fees to finance a Christian newspaper did not violate the Constitution because the students were financing a forum, not individual speakers. The creation of this forum lies at the heart of the student fee allocation system, and is a necessary function of a university. Free speech challenges to this system, such as Southworth's, are limited precisely because the current system essentially produces a monetary forum for free speech. The Court cannot confirm the lower courts' decisions in the Southworth case without overturning Rosenberger.
What would be most interesting in this case is if Southworth used even a penny of student fee money to take to the courts. But it's a good bet that he's smarter than that. He, of all people, should know that free speech doesn't always come for free.
Mustela is a Topeka junior in journalism and political science.
I first, I was most sadder Body President Korb Maxwell recite a blatantly scripted question designed to help Greg Mucci, the director of the Kansas and Burge Unions, present prepared data insinuating that the Jaybowl is nothing more than a waste of space. If wasting space is such a concern, why overlook the extensive and virtually unused fourth floor lobby area?
Greg
Hurst
guest columnist
opinion@kansan.com
You see, I sat in on the town hall meeting Feb. 1, where there was a discussion about plans to renovate the Kansas Union, and there were some things that occurred that really made me sad.
Removal of Jaybowl lanes could reduce Union traffic
Second, it was rather disturbing to see Mr. Maxwell
come into the meeting late, speak his given role and then leave early. It's difficult to imagine how something that has turned into such a hot issue can be of so little importance to the person whose main purpose is to represent the students who have decided that this issue is, in fact, of such great importance.
First, I was most saddened to hear Student
Third, it was very disappointing to hear the repeated suggestion that the almost 5,000 signatures on the petition to save the lanes practically could be nullified because the student body was "uninformed." What's disappointing about this is that the people who are supposed to represent the students deem these students to be ignorant and seem to prefer it that way.
I am not a bowler. However, I'd like to talk about the Jaybowl.
The fourth thing that frightens and saddens me is a trend that's starting to develop. Mr. Mucci repeatedly claimed that more lounge area needs to be made available to the students, and although there is considerable lounge area on the fourth floor, he claims it is "inadequate," thus rendering something that was previously only rarely frequented into something now abandoned.
In addition, after supplying that the Jaybowl lanes aren't pulling their own weight. Mr. Muccol's solution is to entirely eliminate them. What's so disturbing is just this: When an
Here are some apparently overlooked points: First, some of the Computer Center users are also Jaybowl users, so all of the traffic will definitely not be entirely new. Second, if so many people use the Computer Center at its current location, then many aren't going to be willing to go all the way across campus. Fourth, most Computer Center users are there to work and not to spend money — to some extent this will still hold true, thus lowering expected potential revenue. Fifth, some current users may even visit this new "cybercafé," not like it and never return.
If each of these overlooked problems cuts the "traffic" of 170,000 by a mere 10 percent (certainly an underestimation), then you're down to barely half of what is expected and not marginally more than the Jaybowl pulls in now, let alone what it could pull in were it given the renovation it deserves.
Why can't you fix the Jaybowl just be enhanced? Why not fix up the fourth floor lounge? Why not renovate the existing lanes? Why give up on what you've got? If the computers don't pull the much-heralded "traffic" that Mr. Mucci and Mr. Maxwell expect, are we just going to burn the Union down?
Speaking of "traffic," this seems to be the favorite argument against the lanes at the Jaybowl. Mr. Mucci claims that the existing Computer Center sees about 170,000 people. Therefore, moving the computers to the Union would bring about 170,000 "new" customers. And coupled with an all-night café, this is supposed to bring greater revenue.
existing lounge is inadequate, Mr. Mucci abandons it; when existing lanes don't seem to sufficiently be producing revenue, Mr. Mucci eliminates them. So within one year of arriving here, Mr. Mucci is already setting a trend of destruction and abandonment.
Finally, the people who want to remove the lanes and replace them with computers claim that their interests are in the "future" of the Union. The problem is that as the future becomes the present, we'll be seeing more and more students with their own computers.
But, show me just one student who has his or her own bowling lane. I graciously rest my case.
Hurst is a 1998 KU graduate. He works at the Jaybowl.