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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2005
NEWS
NATION
Gay couple files lawsuit to overturn marriage ban
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Calling gays "the most oppressed minority since slavery," an attorney for a gay couple urged a judge yesterday to overturn California and federal laws banning same-sex marriage.
The lawsuit is one of only a few challenges to gay marriage bans that are pending in federal court.
California recognizes only marriages between a man and a woman.
Christopher Hammer and Arthur Smelt applied for a marriage license from
Orange County last year and filed suit after they were turned down.
Lawyers for the county, state and federal governments and two private groups backing California's ban on gay marriage argued that the couple have failed to prove they have been victims of unconstitutional discrimination.
Same-sex couples can register in the statewide domestic partners registry and are protected against discrimination by legislation, said Christopher Krueger, a lawyer for the California attorney general's office.
The Associated Press
"This isn't slavery and segregation," Krueger said.
ACCREDITATION: Evaluators to meet with students, faculty
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School of Medicine-Wichita. The committee has spent the last two years completing the self-study and writing the self-study report.
"Some universities create a separate office for accreditation," Romzek said. "We decided to do with existing staff on a more modest budget."
The report discussed significant changes at the University since 1994, the last time the University was accredited. It also responded to concerns stated by the 1994 consultant-evaluators and discussed the University based on the Higher Learning Commission's five criteria.
Romzek said some of the changes discussed in the report included the following: qualified admissions policy, increased retention and graduation rates, increased student initiatives, $455 million in building projects, tuition enhancement and new information systems such as Blackboard, the Kyou Portal, and online library systems.
Romzek said each consultant-evaluator received a package of about 11 pounds of information including the selfstudy report, the student handbook and various appendices to read before the site evaluation.
To prepare for the site visit, Teeter said the steering committee released the self-study reporter in December and has held briefings with staff and faculty to get them ready to discuss the report.
"There is no special sprucing up," Romzek said. "We are just doing what we would need to normally do."
The consultant-evaluators will visit the Lawrence campus, the Edwards campus and Med Center campus. The evaluators will be on the Lawrence campus from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2.
During the visit, evaluators will have scheduled meetings with various faculty, staff and students on campus to review the University.
"There are structured and unstructured times," Romzek said. "The evaluators have the license to stop and ask questions to anyone if they want to."
- Edited by Azita Tafreshi
STATE
Police investigate package from BTKkiller
WICHITA — Investigators have tracked down a missing communication that may have come from the BTK serial killer, leading police to again appeal to the public for help in solving the case
Tuesday that led police to a suspicious package in a rural area northwest of Wichita. That postcard also inquired about an earlier undiscovered communication, which police said they found Wednesday night.
Wichita television station KAKE received a postcard
Police believe the package could be connected to BTK and have submitted its contents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, police Lt. Ken Landwehr said yesterday. He
did not elaborate on its contents and refused to take questions from reporters.
BTK, which stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill," has been linked to eight unsolved killings from 1974 through 1986. He resur-faced in March with letters to media and police.
police wanted to talk to anyone who may have seen any suspicious activity in the area between Jan. 14 and 25.
The package referenced in the postcard, which the sender called communication number eight, was found on North Seneca Street. Landwehr said
KAKE aired footage of the package, a Post Toasties cereal box, weighted down with a brick, leaning against a traffic sign along a road. The letter T on the name Toasties was circled on the box, and the letter B written was written above it with the letter K below.
The Associated Press
HEMENWAY'S CONTRIBUTION
Chancellor Hemenway described his term as "two busy years of putting in place an academic reform for the ongoing future." Here are the highlights of his tenure as chairman.
October 2002: A policy was adopted that required college freshmen to complete 24 hours of course work and have at least a 1.8 GPA. The policy also required the completion of 40,60 and 80 percent of requirements for degrees by the end of the second, third and fourth years.
February 2004: An NCAA Recruiting Task Force was formed in response to recruitment violations in the NCAA. Its mission was to review recruiting rules and recommend possible new standards.
April 2004: Board approved an incentives/disincentives
program that included scholarship penalties and the loss of eligibility for various postseason and preseason tournaments. It was similar to the policy approved by the Board Jan. 10,2005.
NCAA: Chancellor set higher standards for NCAA teams
Source: NCAA
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and they're still expected to attend every class, she said.
Kansas baseball coach Ritch Price wasn't worried about adhering to the change.
Galindo said he would even take a diploma over an NCAA championship. He also said he planned to fulfill a promise to his mother to graduate.
In his two years at the University, Price said all of his 13 seniors graduated.
For Price, academic success starts at recruitment.
"If you recruit kids who belong at the school academically, you're not going to have a problem," he said.
More current data was not available because it is being calculated by the NCAA, Buskirk
The most recent graduation rate data available to the public for KU student-athletes is based on the freshman class of 1997. Based on the data, the graduation rate for student-athletes on scholarships was 63 percent, compared to 58 percent for all students.
Marchiony credited good interaction between the student-athletes and the faculty.
said. The first figures will come back next month, he said.
"We have historically done a very good job with academics," said Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director of external affairs. "Never has that been the case more that it is right now."
Three teams achieved team record GPAs: men's track and field, 3.36; men's basketball, 2.88; and baseball, 2.83. The basketball and baseball teams each achieved higher GPAs than the University average for males, which was 2.81.
"This will be our way of knowing where we stand," he said. "This is the NCAA's wakeup call."
Statistics from the Fall 2004 semester show that KU student-athletes must be doing something right. They recorded their best academic performance for a fall semester — a 2.91 grade point average — in the athletics department's history. Their GPA was only slightly below the all-University average of 2.93.
THE 10 PERCENT CAP
Here is a breakdown of the maximum possible contemporaneous penalties that would be imposed by a 10 percent cap on a team's financial aid limit.
Sport Team Limit Maximum Penalty (of scholarships) (of scholarships)
Baseball 11.7 1.17
Men's basketball 13 1
Women's basketball 15 2
Division I-A football 85 9
Division I-AA football 63 6
Men's ice hockey 30 3
Women's ice hockey 30 3
Men's track 12.6 1.26
Women's track 18 1.8
Softball 12 1.2
Women's volleyball 12 1
Note: For sports such as baseball and track, teams can give out partial scholarships for tuition, room and board and other financial aid. This is why some figures are represented in decimals.
and the hard work done by Buskirk and the student-support service staff for KUAC's academic success.
For Chancellor Hemenway, whose two-year term as Board chairman will end in April, student-athletes' academic success
Source: NCAA News
at this University comes as no surprise.
"Institutions which do the right thing, like Kansas, serve as a model for a healthy intercollegiate system," he said.
— Edited by Jesse Truesdale
ALWAYS $2 off cover with a KU ID
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