Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 28, 1981
Opinion
Sending wrong signals
Wheat farmers rejoiced, and the Soviets were probably pretty happy too, but those people trying to follow President Reagan's policies were most likely confused last week when Reagan lifted the 15-month-old embargo of grain shipments to the Soviet Union.
Reagan had campaigned under the promise of lifting the embargo but once in office, he declared the embargo wouldn't be lifted because it would "send the wrong signal" to the Soviets.
That turnaround of a campaign promise got turned around again last week, when Reagan apparently decided it wouldn't send the wrong signals if the embargo were lifted. It's not known just what the Soviets are perceiving from these policy shifts, but
as for the American public, it's probably at least equally as confused as the Kremlin.
No one expects the president never to change his mind. But if policy shifts become routine, as they did under the Carter administration, then the foreign policy Reagan wants to formulate will be incoherent.
Reagan obviously wants to achieve consistency in foreign policy—he seems to want a kind of ideal rigidity saying that the Soviets do a certain thing they can expect a certain American response. Last week's action (although long overdue), is not a step toward that consistent policy. Only time will tell what signals (if any) the embargo lifting sent to the Soviets.
Puerto Rico's real status needs to be defined soon
By JEFFREY M. PURYEAR New York Times Special Features
NEW YORK - Puerto Rico is waiting for Washington to declare its intentions.
To the outside world, it may appear that it's up to Puerto Rico to decide whether it wants statehood or not. To Puerto Rico, it's not that simple.
Each of the options facing the island — statehood, a revised commonwealth status, or independence — might make sense, depending on what conditions are attached to them. That is the problem: Only Congress can spell out those conditions. Washington maintains that if the governor would like what you pretend Rio wants then what you pretend Rio wants depends on what Washington is willing to grant.
Behind this dilemma lies a fundamental misconception in the United States of this country's role in Puerto Rico, and its policy-makers fail to see any problem at all.
That minority of public spokesmen that has addressed the issues tends to misconstruer Puerto Rico's problem as one of self-determination. This view implies that Puerto Rico should be made to decide what kind of relationship they want and submit their proposal to Congress.
This approach ignores one fundamental fact: Washington holds almost all the cards. Although it is painful for the United States to acknowledge, the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico is fundamentally colonial and can hardly be described as equitable.
Acquired in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico was given commonwealth status by Congress in 1952 and has no legal power to change that status. While local autonomy has considerably expanded, the island's political relationship to the United States has not changed. This is politically dependent upon Washington, yet has no vote with which to influence Washington's decisions.
Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship in 1917 and serve in the armed forces. They have no vote in presidential elections or in Congress. The island's participation in federal grant and income-transfer programs is based on Congressional largest instead of legal guarantees enjoyed by the 50 states. This arrangement hardly becomes a nation that prizes itself on the free and equal treatment of its citizens.
The issues are complex and cannot be handled without the assistance of the United States accept a bilingual state and the
permit a 20-year phase-in of federal taxes? Could a revised commonwealth arrangement include representation in international organizations and control over immigration? Could independence include the retention of U.S. citizenship for those who already have it, and a transition period involving substantial transfers? Would such an attachment to the three major status alternatives are crucial in determining which of them Puerto Ricans would choose.
A crisis is building in Puerto Rico. The island's political parties are divided and demoralized, after years of battle over political-status alternatives that may not even exist. The status debate is monopolizing the democratic political system and discrediting it for lack of understanding. The island's serious economic difficulties will be exacerbated by the Reagan administration's impending cuts in social legislation.
In general elections in October, the pro-statehood New Progressive Party barely defeated the pro-commonwealth Popular Democrats. Yet Puerto Rico is no closer to commonwealth than the pro-statehood forces won their first gubernatorial election. There is, however, remarkable agreement among Puerto Rican leaders that the present situation is intolerable and that change must occur fronically, the election has led the opposite to a collapse of the party's politicians that Puerto Rico's political status is now safely on the back burner.
Moreover, Puerto Rico's status has become a growing international issue at the United Nations and around Latin America. The United Nations Declaration Committee of Human Rights U.S. policy and is increasingly attracting citizens otherwise friendly the United States.
It is important for Washington to seize the initiative while long-range perspectives can still be applied. Congress should establish a specialized body to deal with Puerto Rico's future. This body would formally explore the issues and provide a much-needed focus for debate. It could also set the conditions in pragmatic, equitable ways, and formulate proposals that Congress could accept in advance and that Puerto Ricans could then decide on.
Both sides have been blinded by a chronic presumption of good will that implies that Puerto Ricans can do as they please. In fact, they cannot. Washington must first tell Puerto Rico what the options are, if it wishes Puerto Ricans to choose from among them.
(Jeffrey M. Puryear coordinates Caribbean programs for a private foundation.)
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affluent, they should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
Letters Policy
KANSAN
The University Daily
(USPS 895-649) Published at the University of Kansas Daily August through May and Monday and Thursday during June and July except August in September. Mail resume to USPS, address A103, Box 2170, Kansas City, KS 66103 or birmingham.usps.org for a $1 six month or $2 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $2 year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee. Postmaster: bond changes of address to the University Daly Knull, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas, Kansas City, KS 66103.
Editor David Lewis
Managing Editor    Elen Iwamoto
Editorial Editor    Don Munday
Art Director    Bob Schmidt
Campus Editor    Scott Faust
Associate Curriculum Editor    Gene Myers
Business Manager Terri Fry
Retail Sales Manager Larry Leibengood
National Sales Manager Hard Light
Campus Sales Manager Kaye Winsom
Production Manager Kevin Kutter
Classifieds Manager Annette Conrad
General Manager and News Adviser Rick Mussel
Kennan Advailer Chuck Chowlin
Student athletic tariff an unfair burden
They'll be dancing the old budgetary soft shoe this afternoon at the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation Board meeting and when the curtain falls, you might end up paying $10 more in student fees. This fee increase, being proposed by Athletic Director Bob Marcum, ostensibly would go toward funding non-revenue-producing athletic programs or, more precisely, every program except men's football and basketball.
As with academic programs, inflation has taken its toll on intercollegiate athletics. The cost of maintaining top-class, winning football and basketball teams which can compete in the Big Eight conference has risen dramatically, as the league has grown. The gate, then all athletic programs feel the pinch. In brief, there no doubt that athletics at KU are hurting for money.
The problem arises when you start to explore the proposed solution to the question. In a recent Kansas interview, Marcum called for more University funding of athletic programs. "The commitment for intercollegiate athletics must come from the University, in terms of money and human resources," he said. Yet it's not being taxed for increased funding, but rather it's the students who'll be generating the additional $300,000 to $400,000 Marcium is requesting.
In arguing for increased funding through student taxation, proponents claim that KU's small athletic budget, currently ranked seventh in the Big Eight, is due in part to lack of student financial support. They claim students at other Big Eight schools, Missouri and Kansas State, for example, contribute more than KU. Yet they don't tell us that part of these students' money goes toward paying off debts for athletic facilities and other capital improvements. Primarily because KU now has no such debt its student contribution is lower.
event, you pay $3 annually to support women's athletics, raising $60,000 for the program. And if you buy football or basketball tickets next year, you will pay $5.00 more than if you did not for those tickets this year. This increase alone will raise $60,000 additional revenue next year, according to one
In essence, you'd begin to believe students currently don't pay a dime toward athletic programs at KU. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if you never attend a sporting
DAVID
HENRY
KUAC board member's estimate. Clearly, KU students are taking a vital role toward supporting men's and women's intercollegiate athletics.
Even more discouraging is to watch the University use a "Monkey see, monkey do" approach in drumming up support for its proposal. If students at University are too aggressive in collegiate athletics, then why not at KU, too? However, similar comparisons fall on deaf ears when the issue is changed to student concerns; examples of beer sales at other peer institutions have gone nowhere toward gaining administration approval. The revenue it appears the University is committed to a policy of comparison only when it strengthens its side of the argument.
Unlike many, I believe the University has a commitment to support intercollegiate athletics. I think such programs can have a positive and constructive purpose at KU. Yet this year's Legislature has severely limited its funding of its state universities. In nearly every program, our students are being beaten over among them, we are asked to tighten our belts and gratify bear it.
In athletics, the Legislature has consistently refused University requests for increased funding of women's non-revenue sports. While Marcum is asking for additional money for
athletics, nowhere is there a University movement underfoot to add a fee to pay faculty salaries or improve the library. By asking for tuition from students, the University borders on hypocrisy.
While sports do indeed serve a purpose, I question an additional $10 a year in student fees. Only last month the administration was quibbled over 55 cents in the proposed Revenue Code increase. Now, with uncustomary abandon, $5 a semester for non-revenue athletics seemingly gains unqualified support. And interestingly, no other student group on campus receives even close to that $5 (the University Daily Kansan and Recreational Services each get approximately $3 per semester, making them the leading revenue-getters).
I suppose that Marcum's underlying assumption in calling for additional student fees is a belief that the University of Kansas, as we know it, would crumble without a first-class intercollegiate program. In that case I am satisfied with Marcum having their piece of the pie, Marcum included. KUAC should get a reasonable portion but it has no right to expect the student body to pay for a bigger piece.
The primary priorities of the University are academic, not athletic. Therefore, I am dismayed when I sense the University administration, prodded by its athletic director, losing sight of this purpose in its gung-ho support of a student-funded fee for athletics.
The sad reality is that the Legislature appears unwilling to fund intercollegiate athletics. The University, hard pressed to make ends meet, cannot provide everything either. Yet clearly it is not the responsibility of students to further subsidize athletics. As does virtually every other program at KU, Marcum's KUAC must face pain, but inevitable, budget cuts.
when it meets this afternoon, I hope the KUAC board will place its priorities in a context broader than the specific needs of intercollegiate athletics and reject Marcum's proposal for additional student fees for non-revenue programs.
Letters to the Editor
Motherhood arguments hardly supportable
To the editor:
I have found most of the editorials written by Eric Brende facile, if not outright stupid. But after "Biology leaves no question; women make up the majority feel compelled to air my disgust at his views.
1. lego to differ on three points in particular in the article mentioned above. First, he references one study to support his entire argument, a study comparing three-month-old boys to girls as they listen to fair tales—a boy will apparently listen with the left hemisphere of his brain while the right will be more right. (I assume the analytically-minded male can comprehend speech at three months.)
Upon this "reference" he claims to discredit Betty Friedan, John Locke, B.F. Skinner and countless others by implication. Thus, Brende propounds that men and women are innately very different and quickly concludes that women are more important than men while the men should go out and "provide." Unfortunately, he leaves out hundreds of other studies that point toward social training beginning at birth, teachers' early reinforcement of sex roles and the strong evidence for it (Friedan, 2008), which you will only achieve what you expect to achieve, and no more.
The second point I need feels to be made is the assumption of the "mothering instinct." The fact is that the human animal possesses no instincts, except to blink, suck, grasp, breathe and eliminate waste. Everything else is learned. There is strong evidence that motherhood is not primitive but primitive human communities remaining on earth—the bushmen of Australia—will quickly abandon babies if they become too burdensome. They will also trade their children for food or
glass beads. This suggests that our female ancestors felt no particular "instinct" for mothering, but that perhaps they began to love and care for the children were necessary to pronounce the race.
Even today, an alarming number of babies are killed or abused by their mothers (and fathers) when they are born.
Lastly, Brende excludes fathers entirely from the process of child-rearing, saying that they are "secondary" importance to mothers. I say this is a lot of propagating from someone thoroughly inducted to the idea that to be a superior-male means disdainting such trivial aspects of life as raising children. Too bad. I am not sure if the idea of choosing also to be wonderful, caring fathers. And, I think rather than the "traditional" nuclear family minus father-provider (a return to which would cure the social lil's of our nation, according to Brende), the best idea is to get both women and men involved in all aspects of life—together. *Juil McLaren*
Fitness for voting
To the editor:
After reading Erlene Brenda's editorial concerning women, can't help but wonder if he would want to take the job.
I am looking forward to his next column on why bills are best suited to slavery.
Clare D. Cross-Schmalbeck Lawrence Junior
To the editor:
New family roles
As I read Eric Brende's latest editorial on the biology of motherhood, there was something
oddly familiar about the rhetoric of his argument. Then I remembered—this is the same young man who thinks women should have no right to choose abortion. Is Eric uncomfortable with the options a woman has today? It does appear so. His view that only a child needs to take care of the children sounds like something his father or grandfather might have said.
Maybe the word "equal" offends him. Today it is a necessity to be able to live with the concept of equality. When women do work that only men used to do, and when women often do that work better, it is time to concede and accept equality. Today women have every opportunity men have.
In a very general way, the options for a woman today can be seen as three: one, a full-time career with no family; two, a full- or part-time career with a family; or three, a full-time family. Each of these represents potentially worthwhile and satisfactory activities. Option number two has long been exercised by men, and it is only fair that women enjoy it also.
The important thing is that men and women who choose any of these options find a mate, who complements their choice of life. That is the key to preparing the way for our children. They need to be born out of selfless love and be raised in a healthy and stimulating home environment.
That environment can be created by a couple who share their energies in the pursuit of a common goal—not social status and megabucks, but the goal of raiding and protecting healthy and happy children. Ecstatic experiences of well-adjusted individuals, capable of establishing deep and lasting human relationships, springs forth to experience life anew. Robert Bruce Scott