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Tuesday, March 6, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Rock Chalk Reviewed
Fading into the memories of those who participated, the 1973 Rock Chalk Revue indicated that reevaluation is necessary for any future attempt. The idea of living groups from all parts of campus coming together to present entertainment is indeed a good one.
Four skirts, a series of in-between acts and a long, uncomfortable wait for the awards presentation at the end of the Saturday night performance constituted this year's revue.
Rock Chalk stands as a landmark tradition of the University.
Three of the four skits had their foundation in musical comedy. The fourth, an excellently performed commentary on life and death by Hashinger Hall, brought to Rock Chalk for the first time a combination of modern dance and experimental theatre.
This night of entertainment generated complaints concerning the overall purpose of Rock Chalk, its future and the best manner in which to accomplish the goal of uniting campus living organizations in a night of entertainment. Disagreement exits concerning the types of awaver presented and the nature of the was in which a comparison could be made between musical comedy and experimental theatre.
Let us examine these complaints
the following observations.
—The assumption shall be made that Rock Chalk will continue again next year. It would be sad to allow them to disappear from the University.
—With the appearance of new dramatic forms in the revue, it might serve the revue well to establish categories in which living groups may direct their scripts
toward a certain art form. Because many living groups will begin consideration of their next revue skit categories or categories should be established soon.
Readers Respond
—It has been alleged that some of the script and-or score writers had no direct affiliation with the living group that submitted a skit. Participation in writing, composing and performing should be limited to individuals who are members of a living unit at the time of the revue.
—Awards should be expanded to encompass areas that transcend all forms of the dramatic arts: best script, best score, best male and female vocalists and best choreography. Awards should continue to be given for best male and female performance. It would seem unfair to attempt to recognize an overall best production because the form of presentation may differ. Comparison would obviously be difficult and unfair. Perhaps an award should be given for best production within a certain theatrical form.
Along with these complaints, an idea has been generated that Rock Chalk give way to an all-campus talent show. To lose Rock Chalk would be disastrous for it offers an opportunity to help people come together once a year to create.
If we do lose this tradition, then the blame must rest with Rock the organizer who do not attempt to take this year's problems and complaints.
One stage hand commented after the Saturday night performance, "Roses are red, violets are blue, this one was better than "72."
"Not much better," some critics
exclaimed, hoping the more
74 white voters would vote.
Voting for a Cause
—R.E. Duncan
It is hard enough to get red-blooded Americans out to vote in a city primary, much less a city full of decadent hippies, coloreds and misfits. But this time, maybe something should happen just a little bit different.
There are three men running to be
top dogs in this city for whom good
grooming is essential.
There is not a lot they can do. The radical courts are going to make the white kids go to school with the colored government of the people says.
There is not much they can do to straighten out the University. They
will still keep on bringing in these foreign heatens, as if those kids didn't have enough un-American ideas in their heads the way it is.
But they can get the police out of wasting their time with these community relations meetings and out of getting it in line with all the other stuff those kids do.
These guys could get elected with 700 or 800 votes, so stand up for America. Vote for Robert Elder and Gene Miller today. Fred Pence may be the official member of the John Birch Society, but he knows what's what.
—Eric Kramer
Guest Editorial
With Club in Hand
The U.S. Supreme Court made a gallant effort last week to further clarify existing legal guidelines on what kind of club can racially discriminate in membership requirements and on guest lists, but the decision the court handed down contained no quintessence of clarity.
To settle the case, the court looked back into the books and found a law that, in this context, had been sleeping for more than a century.
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun said in the court's decision that giving membership preference to white residents and excluding black residents of the neighborhood in 1866 Civil Rights Act that gave equal benefits for both blacks and whites in owning or leasing homes.
Blackmun acknowledged, though, that one legal loophole still might exist for privately owned recreation clubs that wanted to continue excluding blacks from membership. He noted that the Maryland club was not a private club because its membership was open to all white residents of the area, and its only "plan or purpose of exclusiveness" as a private club was the exclusion of blacks.
The different requirements for membership in the two clubs were these: The Moose Lodge limited membership to white males who were over 21 years old and married to white women who professed a belief in a supreme being. The swim club's criteria for membership were that a person be white and reside within the neighborhood.
Blackmun compared this decision with the court's opinion last June in a Harrisburg, Pa., Moose Lodge case in which that club was judged
to be a "private club" and protected by the freedom of private association protections of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
However, the Supreme Court did uphold in December a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that the same Moose Lodge was a "public accommodation" and had to admit black guests because the club had rented its property to nonmember white guests.
The 1866 Civil Rights Act did not apply to the Moose Lodge's case because, unlike the Maryland swim club, its membership requirements contained no references to home ownership or residency.
In the Maryland swim club case, the court made no mention of whether that club was a public accommodation.
What the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be saying would apply in this manner: My local Elsk Lodge (God forbid that I should be a member, lest I be clubbed to death with an 18-point antler) will be allowed to stay completely private if it selects its members according to the letter of its by-laws, keeps its doors tightly closed to all nonmembers and does not tie in membership eligibility with ownership of property.
—Jerry Esslinger
To the Editor:
Festival Guidelines Interpreted...
Political Issues
An article in the Kansan entitled "No Political Slogans to Be Allowed During International Club Exhibition" gave the impression that the various national political organizations Club will not present things controversial to the sensibilities of the general public. The two guidelines offered by the International Festival Committee, no political slogans no aggressive stances, were laid down to the audience in feeling of internationalism among participating groups.
To pretend, however, that "culture" must consist only of dancing and singing of an entertaining nature is rage ("How the world colors colorful?" ) and highly hypocritical and decadent.
To ignore politics in an international gathering is to blind oneself to the reality of the world situation, and is an insult to the participants of the participating members and the audience. To have just a fashion show or a dance is an injustice to the mass of humanity, which does not paraphrase this false sense of公lation.
That each nation-group is autonomous in its presentation of programs and exhibits also has to be respected, given the two guidelines. The presentations and exhibits will portray what each nation-group deems to represent its people's culture. There is no ban on exposing political, social and economic issues of each nation group, preferably tie into the development of a people's culture.
Mona Hamman Alexandria, United Arab Republic. Graduate Student
Mona Hamman
Xenophobia
The general development of foreign-student organizations has been to grow into politically conscious bodies, through which students can expand and their knowledge of the problems their peoples face. This qualitative progression on the part of these groups has brought out an all-embracing atmosphere of trust and restrictions designed to create the xenophobe rampant in the public consciousness, and to
All those who think we are here to engulf ourselves in "singing and dancing," and to take this "advanced" culture back with us, are in for a terrible disappointment.
To the Editor:
The Kanan, the University administration and the Student Senate have provided numerous instances in which the above principles are applied. By either taking a position against foreign-student organizations, or remaining neutral when injustice was being perpetrated against them, and by consistently progressive causes of these groups or the peoples they represent, these University
Vahid Sariolghalam Teheran, Iran, Junior
further isolate foreign students from the American public.
bodies have served as bureaucratic obstacles to the growth of an American awareness of the world situation.
All those who think we are here to display our national life as an exotic commodity devoid of all economic and political realities prevalent today, would do best looking elsewhere.
ic obstacles to the of an American awareness of the worldization. Last year the School Engineering tried to keep an Iranian student out of the school simply because he was an Iranian. Last semester, while Arab Arabia deported from this area for no legal reasons and the FBI had the Arab community under surveillance, the University stood by so much as raising an eyebrow.
Yet a letter such as the one sent by Hillel Unz, professor of electrical engineering, who has been committed so much公私合情 to the Student Senate to send a representative to International Club meetings to investigate the club of being "political."
This, of course, was followed by a Kansan article comforting one and all that the International Festival will not be political. This clearly reflects the general tendencies of the governing
bodies of this University.
...Libyan Plane, Pearson, Duncan
Airliner
To the Editor:
One wonders what kind of cartoon the Kansan would have published if the Libyan airliner crashed and loaded with explosives, into a city block in Israel and had killed 1,000 people. After the Lydaa airport and Munich Olympics caused an ample reason to fear the worst.
If Israel had had any way of knowing that the plane was full of non military passengers, the catastrophe would not have happened. We should establish a hot line to prevent dreadful accidents of this sort?
Election
Associate Professor of English
To the Editor:
Melvin Landsberg
Clark wants better enforcement of housing and building practices in input on affairs that affect Lawrence and the University. Clark also says he feels an obligation to improve East and North Law.
I believe Barkley Clark is the best qualified candidate for city commissioner. I believe that communication between the city council and the mayor was proved by having a KU faculty member on the commission.
Revenue sharing has provided the city of Lawrence with
Admittedly, the course of the world will not be altered in the city primary election today. However, the actions of the Lawmakers are an impact on the students at KU and the community we inhabit.
$444,000. It is the city commission that will determine how this money is spent. Barkley Clark uses it to be used for human programs and to fund programs that have lost Federal money because of its mismanagement.
As a professor of law, Clark's emphases have been in the areas of local government and community development, his expertise in local government and consumer rights makes him eminently qualified to be a city attorney.
Among the candidates for city commission are two avowed John Birch Society members. These candidates are also setting policy in this community. Anyone who voted in Lawrence in last November's general election will be eligible to vote in today's primary and in the April 3rd general election.
Everyone can vote for one, two or three candidates. I beechow to you cast a one of those votes for Barkley Clark. If you know and two other candidates I would encourage you to vote for them also.
But, I for one do not want John Birchers deciding how to spend almost a half million dollars in revenue sharing money.
Charlie Wilson Goodland Senior
Pearson
I am writing this letter in reaction to criticism and rumors recently aimed at the Pearson program. As a Pearson student, I am
To the Editor:
concerned about the current attempt to prevent the program from fulfilling certain freshman and junior requirements: English, 1.2.3, *Women's Civilization*, Speech, and Humanities. This attempt seems to be founded on some basic knowledge about the nature of the course.
Many charges of "indo-
dictionation" have been made,
based on the idea that Pearson
professors hold a narrow
viewpoint, and that because of
their formal training they
minded. My experience in the
program has shown this to be
false.
There is a huge variety of differences in opinion, personality and academic interests among the students. Management and questioning always occur when controversial issues arise.
The things that Pearson students do hold in common have nothing to do with one narrow ideology: memorization of about 600 lines of poetry by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, etc., a knowledge of constellations and reading of certain authors and works of literature, classics—Homer, Plato, the Bible. St. Annette, etc.
Anyone who could emerge from two years of that curriculum with a narrow viewpoint must have learned how to have thoroughly enjoyed the rigorous memorization and reading, and am grateful that I have had the choice to pursue this course. I am as a freshman and sophomore.
One argument has been made that this kind of an education is not "liberal." That accusation
could only be made by one who is unaware of the academic meaning of the word. The Pearson program is modeled after academic programs in colleges across America, which are famous for the excellent liberal education they offer.
Another objection to the program is that it is oriented toward religion. This also is not true. An emphatic point made in the course about a person's religion is that it is no one's business but his own. To prohibit those who use the bodies of the personal beliefs of the professors is religious prejudice, and an infringement of academic freedom.
It would be an unfortunate error for the University of Kansas to allow the Pearson program to be discriminated on the basis of lifesthools and prejudices that concern it. The course is in its third year of operation, and activity and enthusiasm. To discredit it now would be to ignore the rule of justice, which assumes innocence until guilt is proven.
Eva Tarnower Topeka Sophomore
Only Fictional
Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of R. E. Duncan's editorial on the Commission on the Status if Men is that it is only fictional.
To the Editor:
Kathy Turner Lawrence Junior
James J. Kilpatrick
Rolling Back the Warren Wave
The process cannot fairly be described, as some disappointed liberals have termed it, as a "revolution" or as a "march to power." In the law of desegregation, the court continues to steer by the old Warren landmarks. In other areas, such as the law on abortion, the court is constructing an activism all its own.
WASHINGTON — Little by little, with every month that passes by, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren Burger is beginning to justify the hopes of conservatives across the country to aggress, the Court is beginning to roll back the Warren wave.
What is happening is precisely what many of us had hoped would happen. The four Nixon appointees (Burger, Blackmun, Powell and Rehquist) are picking up a vote from White or Blackmun, the group pruning away the suckers from the luxuriant vines of the Warren years. This is not an uprooting; it is a positive strengthening, and
the law will be better for it.
We saw an instructive example of the pruning process on Feb. 21, when the court voted 5-3, with Virginia's Lewis Powell abstaining, to reinstate the key decision and redistricting the Virginia House of Delegates. The majority, speaking through Rehquist, took the common-sensual view that substance is more important than form. The majority saw the rule of thirds not matches on a tally stick, but as human beings entitled to effective representation.
The Virginia General Assembly had two purposes in mind: it wanted to create House districts substantially equal in population, but it also wanted to preserve the individual counties. The latter purpose is important in Virginia. Residents of the Old Dominion, to an extraordinary degree, regard themselves as citizens of Rappahannock, Northumberland, or whatever. The whole structure of state
To the doctrinaire liberal, such a consideration is irrelevant. The liberal is more concerned with form than with substance, with the ideal rather than with the material. It requires numbers and percentages count for more than men and women. Justice Brennan, fuming in dissent, said he could find "no basis whatsoever" for affirming the legislature's plan. He and his two colleagues, Douglas and Douglas Mansfield, preferred a plan conceived by a district court instead.
government rests on this local foundation.
But there was indeed a rational basis for the majority's decision. Ideally, each of the Virginia House districts would have a smaller number of members. Under the assembly's plan, which preserved traditional county lines, the largest district would have been 9.8 per cent above the mark, the smallest 8.8 per cent. For a total variation of 16.4.
The district court plan, in contrast, would have had a total
The opinion of Feb. 21 was not a monumental opinion, but it was a good and sound one. After the earthquake years of Earl Robinson, a little leaved-bush stability seems quite enough to ask.
majority kept its eye on the target. The purpose of representative government, after all, is to provide effective representation; it is not to play numbers. The majority thus reinstated the General Assembly's plan, which the district council agreed at the process, the majority quietly pruned a away couple of 1967 precedents set by the old Warren court.
variation of 10.2 per cent; but the court-ordered plan would have broken county lines at least a dozen times.
Translated into the real world, the plan devised by the district court would have jerked 6,000 persons out of Scott County, in the holy name of mathematical equality, and dumped them in a fenced-in yard. In others. The court-ordered plan, in the same insignious fashion, would have effectively disfranchised 29,000 residents of Virginia beach by shuffling them off to the 308,000 in Norfolk. The three dissenters on the high court, viewing the district court's pretend figure, were forced the people. Fortunately, the five-man
Fortunately, the five-man
Copyright, 1973 by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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