4
Monday, February 22, 1971
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
As students have known for many years, the University keeps confidential files on every student. And of course the University assures students that no one can see the files without the student's permission.
But the fact that files are kept by the administration raises some serious questions. Are staff members who have access to the files required to keep all information they know on a student secret? Are these staff members carefully screened to assure that they should have access to the files? Do the staff members have to have a student's permission to see the file?
The existence of the files brings to mind tactics used by the SS in Nazi Germany.
So why do the files continue to be kept in the dean of women's and dean of men's offices, the registrar's office and the Guidance Bureau?
Dean of Men Donald Alderson claims that the files are used for counseling, Kala Strop, associate dean of women, claims that the files are necessary for reaching a student or his parents in a hurry.
It seems that for counseling, the counselor could obtain as much information as he needs from the student during the interview or counseling session. All that is needed to reach a child or his parents is phone numbers, class addresses, and addresses, addresses, phone numbers, IBM cards, resident hall counsel reports and other items are definitely not necessary in any students's file.
The population grows and grows and universities, governments, credit bureaus and other agencies and organizations think it necessary to keep files on their many students, constituents, clients and customers.
Ramsey Clark, attorney general under President Johnson, said last Thursday in Kansas City, Mo, that he opposed not only
wiretapping and eavesdropping but also the existence of confidential files on people.
Clark talked about the 4th and 14th amendments to the Constitution and the right to privacy. The 4th amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . ."
But today wiretapping equipment and computers do exist and they are used to invade a person's privacy.
The existence of confidential files in the deans' offices is a rather simple example of this invasion, but it is an example.
The files are not necessary—especially the many IBM cards, interview reports, counselors' reports and other paraphenal that are kept in the files for students' life. (The files are destroyed five years after the student graduates.)
The 14th amendment says, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; or state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . ."
When the 4th amendment was drafted in the 18th Century, there were no devices for wiretaping or eavesdropping and there were no computers that could easily store files on many people. At that time a person's privacy could be invaded in very few ways—entrance of a person's home without permission, theft of personal papers and letters and arrest or seizure without cause.
The files should be destroyed now. All copies or computer tapes of the files should be destroyed or erased and the University should stop playing at spying on the students.
—Dan Evans
Boycott Evidence Lacking
The Senate, in effect, has asked students not to patronize these establishments until "there is no evidence of discriminatory practices" on the part of these establishments. The owners of these bars have refuted the accusations.
The assumption that combining firewater and red men leads to looting and burning went out of style with the bustle. Most people now realize that firewater has the same effect on people of all colors—the Indian is no more prone to irresponsibly under the influence of alcohol than the white, black or yellow man.
Thus the studentry is left in a quandary. Whose word, the owners' or the Senate's, is to be accepted? Students have been asked to contribute to ruining business of these establishments without any facts on which to base their boycott.
The Student Senate has passed a resolution urging KU students to boycott two Lawrence beer establishments because they allegedly discriminate against the American Indians attending Haskell Junior College.
The resolution objects to an alleged requirement of presenting a four-year parole identification card before a parole court is required to be served in these establishments.
If indeed these establishments are discriminating against a faction of our society, a boycott would be in line to indicate student resentment of being a
party to discrimination against their fellow man.
But exactly how are Indians being discriminated against? On whose authority, other than the entire Senate's, is this charge being made? In other words, is a useful examination been made by the Student Senate to validate these accusations?
If so, the results of the examination should be made public before the students are asked to rush headlong into a boycott. The Student Senate is a powerful body, and I fear too many students will follow their lead without bothering to stop and ask themselves if accusations are qualified. Thus an injustice will be done to these businesses if the accusations are not fully bounded.
I do not portend to stand up for the right of business to do anyone an injustice while in pursuit of monetary support, but neither am I ready to act against anyone just because someone else tells me to do so.
The basic principle of American justice is that a man (in this case, an establishment) is innocent until proven guilty. I therefore ask for evidence on which to found my actions regarding this matter. In the case of a boyfriend, what that discrimination is the case, I would agree with the Senate that a boycott is appropriate.
—Robin Stewart
Quotes from the News
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Democratic National Chairman Lawrence F. O'Brien appealing for rebuilding in his party:
"You are being asked to set aside many time-encrusted traditions, to set aside some
regional loyalties and prejudices,
to put behind you the all too human tendency to reward and
pain, to thank and to revenge."
received by this drought-stricken area:
"I accidentally updied a little mud Thursday but I promise the rain will come down today and clean things up."
ASPERMONT, Tex.—Rainmaker Homer Berry on the small amount of rain recently
The Birthday Shuffle
Washington has become a mythical figure through the ages. All school children learn the familiar folklore about the great man. How he chopped down the cherry tree and then admitted his guilt to his father. How he threw a Rappapoankan river (which was a quarter-mile wide). And both of which he never did.
Today is George Washington's birthday. Or it would have been had Congress not decided to give the father of our country a perpetually dateless birthday—the third Monday in every February.
It's interesting to note that at least one of Washington's contemporaries, John Adams, hoped that Washington wouldn't be regarded this way by future generations.
Thomas Jefferson took a kinder dew, calling the first president 'a wise, a good, and a great man.'
On his 56th birthday,
Washington wrote, "Not
withstanding the exploits that
may be performed or the ecat
which may be acquired by
the enemy, I should have
war must be sincerely regretted
by every human and feeling
mind."
Adams' opinion notwithstanding, Washington was a man of vision who held a vibrant dedication to human freedom. Members of Congress, if they bothered him, as they do every year on his birthday, Washington's Farewell Address warning of the dangers of entangling alliances—to the United States struggles to remove itself from an entangling situation such as Washington warned against.
So remember George of the lost birthday today (if you didn't think of him a week ago on his official birthday).
For as fellow here Lincoln said, "Washington is the mightiest name on earth—long since the mightiest on the cause of civil war and in moral reformation. On that name, no eulogy is expected."
—Rob Womaek
Laugh now! They'll love me when I get around to you
Letters Policy
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must come home from school, work in their home town, faculty and staff must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
The Lighter Side
How Many Thugs Could A Drug Bug Bug...
Bv DICK WEST
WASHINGTON (UP1) — This month's "good thinking" award
questionnaires will be written White, D-Tex, for the
intention in the drug drug court.
At House hearings on maracotics traffic in the armed forces, White suggested that the government "determine what blight or bugs attack people."
"Every farm crop is susceptible to some bug or blight," he pointed out. "The numerous paddy fields of the Far East might be attacked with
Beautiful! Stamping out drug abuse in an ecological manner is truly a worthy concept. Except for one little thing.
Plant specialists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture tell me that as far as they know there is no natural enemy of that sort—no insect, we don't know if it's a bug or a fly.
If no poppy pests currently exist, then perhaps it would be possible to provide for that kind of work. One likely candidate might be the tobacco.
Since it spends its life living or horning its way into tobacco plants, this insect presumably is hooked on nicotine. For the reason, it probably should be called a hookworm. But let us not cavil over technicalities.
Now suppose that the tobacco hornwort were placed in a field of wild hemp, otherwise known as marijuana. In view of its habit patterns, it is reasonable to expect that within a short while the hornwort would be booked on pot.
You can, I'm sure, already see where this program is leading. For while there is no proof that pot creates a craving for the hard stuff, statistics do show that a goodly percentage of heroin addicts began with marijuana.
If, then, you take a tobacco hornworm that has graduated to habitat and place it in a poppy field, certain results can be anticipated.
that poppy growers will then develop a methadone spray to help the man that should happen I don't know. I'm confident Rep. White. Will this work?
For the first time, in all likelihood, there will emerge a poppy pest with enough destructive capability to devastate an edible crop.
An All-American college newspaper
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Newsroom--UN 4-4810
Business Office--UN 4-4358
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates $6 a semester. $10 a quarter for materials and services. Goods, services and employment offered to all students without goods, services and employment origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas.
NEWS STAFF
NEWS STAFF
News Adviser . . . Del Brinkman
Editor
Assistant Editor Artist
Campaign Editor
Military Staff
News Editors
Sports Editors
Gym Leaders
Sports Editor
Makeup Editor
Music Editor
Assistant News Editors
Juror
Juror
Koffler, Jeff
Koffler, Jeff
Gallen Beach
Baker, Kevin
Davis Evans
Ted Hiff, Luke Darlent,
Dave Barrel, John Hitter, Nila Walker
Meissner, Bert
Dabker
Mike Moffett, Craig Parker
Kniff, Koffler, Jeff
Kniff, Koffler, Jeff
Gallen Beach
Baker, Kevin
Davis Evans
Ted Hiff, Luke Darlent,
Dave Barrel, John Hitter, Nila Walker
Meissner, Bert
Dabker
Mike Moffett, Craig Parker
Kniff, Koffler, Jeff
Kniff, Koffler, Jeff
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Adviser . . . Mel Adams
No Middle Ground For India's Mrs. Gandhi
Business Manager
Jim Harden
Assistant Business Manager
Jim Harden
Assistant Business Manager
Jim Harden
National Advertising Manager
Mike Boulder
Assistant Business Manager
Mike Boulder
Circulation Manager
Jim Lange
Promotion Manager
By PHIL NEWSOM UPI Foreign News Analyst
When Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi's new Congress party took a cow nursing a calf as a party symbol, her opposition in the old Congress party cried foul. It was too close to the party and the party had been identified for years before its sult in late 1969.
When, last Dec. 27, she unexpectedly called for national elections in March, her opposition cried foul again.
There is no mild ground when it comes to the 83-year-old daughter of an independent Inventor, who is prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
To her opposition, she is a grasping, scheming woman.
To her followers, she is the only one who understands the problems of India.
Both agree that she is the most sensitive of India's politicians to the moods of Indian voters.
And it was not with any thought
of losing that she suddenly reversed herself and called for midterm elections instead of being scheduled date in 1972.
Under Nehrub and throughout its years in power, the Congress party has stood on a platform of socialism. But the party needed the contributions of the rich industrialists and landowners and the labor unions to achieve goals became more blurred and many of its officials more corrupt.
In 1989 Mr. Gandhi broke with the old party or syrizae* as its leaders are known. But for a majority the $23-eat set of the heads who the hard-pressed on the Mowcow-oriented Communists and regional parties
She tells audiences along her campaign trail that she is not Communist but that "I want to bring in socialism."
purses and privileges of the Indian princes, a highly emotional issue.
But she also is meeting formidable opposition from the princes, Hindu traditionalists and landowners who wield great influence among India's 275 million voters, many of whom vote as they are told rather than on social issues.
She won the support of small businessmen and farmers with bank loans, and she is exploiting a promise to abolish the privy
Neither Nehru nor his daughter, nor those who oppose her now, have come up with the answer to the vast problems in India's. They can be summed up in a phrase, over a population.
One person in every eight in the world is an Indian and India's population increases at the rate of around 13 million a year.
In 10 years, Indian unemployment has quadrupled, from 3.5 million to 18 million.
Before one five-year plan ends, targets for the next already have been overcome by the population increase.
Those Were the Days
50 Years Age Today—124
No classes held because
Washington's Birthday is a legal
holiday.
25 Years Age Today—1946
KU enters a critical week of
plague to beat Missouri,
lowa State and to win
the Bix Six. KU is 7-4.
George S. "Dumpy" Bowles wrote the hit song "I'm a Jayhawk" and donated half the
10 Years Age Today-1961
S. I. Hayakawa, renowned sen-
state from San Francisco
State College
Humanities lecture. He called for
a cultural exchange between the
Soviet Union and the United
proceeds from royalties to the new Memorial Stadium fund. Bowles goal was to be an athlete, and he wrote for writing the KU pup story.
States as a solution to the world semantic problems.
A TV basketball party will be held at the Kansas Union and athletic will be able to watch the KU-Buster game and drink free coffee.
The Kansan announced that James Wadsworth, former U.S. ambassador to the United States, will speak at the Model UN at KU.