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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Sept. 27, 1961
Housing Policy Unfair
It must be difficult for a person to leave his home and family and come thousands of miles to live in another country. And it surely must be suckening for him to find there people who openly reject him because he is a foreigner.
On the surface, the story an Egyptian student told the Civil Rights Council Wednesday is merely a deplorable instance of discrimination by a Lawrence landlady. The Egyptian said the landlady had locked him out of his apartment because he had invited another student, a Sudanese, to visit him.
CERTAINLY THE WOMAN HAS A LEGAL right—if not a moral one—to keep out of her house anyone whose skin color she has a prejudice against. Her action, though inhuman, is well within her privilege.
The real cause of the injury suffered by the two foreign students is found in a system of the University's Housing Office that should be changed. Lawrence renters who discriminate because of race or nationality should not be listed by that office.
The Egyptian student was given the woman's name by the KU Housing Office. If her name had not been listed by that office, the unpleasant incident might not have happened.
On March 7 of last year the Kansan reported that a group of CRC members asked Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe to explain the University's policy concerning discrimination in housing listed with the University. He answered that the University "will not and cannot interfere in the rights of the private citizen to choose the person to whom he wishes to rent his property."
THIS APPARENTLY MEANT THAT KU would continue listing discriminatory renters. The same day, J. J. Wilson, director of dormitories, said that although he had considered telling Lawrence residents who rent to students that they would not be listed by the Housing Office if they discriminated, he was abandoning the idea.
"The Chancellor's decision is the official policy now," Mr. Wilson said. "It decides the issue as far as we are concerned."
Mr. Wilson said yesterday that he did not think there would be a significant loss of housing if the University refused to list discriminatory renters. "We're not afraid of a housing loss," he said. "We'd just rather not get mixed up in this racial situation."
EVERYTHING CANNOT BE ACCOMplished at once in the drive for civil rights. Some steps are more difficult than others. But University spokesmen say it would not be difficult for the Housing Office to stop listing discriminatory renters. In fact, Mr. Wilson apparently was planning to do this, and without much fanfare, until the Chancellor made his statement implying that the policy would not be changed.
KU seems to be trying to create an image of itself as an "international" university. It rightfully takes pride in the number and the academic excellence of its foreign students.
But the image tends to get ragged when the University hands these foreign students a housing list containing the names of discriminatory landlords. In doing this the University is tacitly condoning discrimination against part of the student body.
This is an unjust system. It is certain to wound many foreign students at a time when they need friendship and understanding.
IN A SURVEY LAST YEAR of Big Eight schools, the CRC found that Iowa State and Colorado Universities have successfully stricken discriminatory landlords from approved housing lists distributed by the universities.
This could be done at KU, and without "interfering in the rights of the private citizen to choose the person to whom he wishes to rent his property."
The University is morally obligated to its foreign students to prevent the recurrence of the experience endured by the Egyptian and the Sudanese. All KU students, even those who are members of a minority, deserve this routine consideration from their University.
— Fred Zimmerman
KU LACKS POLITICAL THOUGHT
As a foreign student passing through the University, I feel compelled to write you on the deplorable state of political thought—nay, the very lack of it. Never before have I encountered such complete ignorance of the political and social structure of the United States, let alone the rest of the world. To be informed that Britain is a totalitarian state came as somewhat of a shock to someone who has been accustomed to believe that America had the education as well as the material power to be the saviour of democracy and free thought. Never before have I encountered such unwillingness to examine the political actions and policies of one's own country. Is this perhaps due to the fact that American policy in some spheres cannot be defended? It is time that American students began to examine the sagacity of the United States policy toward Cuba, Red China, segregation, and the United Nations.
... Letters . . .
Therefore, strange as it may sound, I welcome the news of the imminent arrival of such organizations as the John Birch Society and the Young Americans for Freedom, and I trust it will not be long before the Communist Party of the U.S.A. is restored to the college campuses of the U.S.A. For, to me, the last hope for the youth of this country is that organizations such as these, by presenting such obvious perversions of truth, may awaken the somnolent masses and at least provoke them to some political thought.
J. M. Mann University of Oxford, Oxford, England
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Sound and Fury
Business Manager
I should like to endorse the remarks of my colleague "OB" whose letter appeared in your "Sound and Fury" column recently. He criticized the inconsistency of the university's position on housing.
The logic of being against something in theory yet permitting its practice escapes me. It is as though I allowed my children to read comic books instead of their textbooks on the ground that they have the freedom to read.
The point is that there is a confusion of the role the university wishes to play in the community. It may well wish to follow general practices, as it does by listing all available rooms, even of those home owners who discriminate. But then it takes to itself the role of follower, not leader. It is my concept of the University that it shall lead, not follow. If we were to follow the community both would be the worse for it.
BK
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
VANITY FAIR, by William Makepeace Thackeray. Vintage (Random House). $1.25.
Joseph Warren Beach, in his introduction to this paperback volume, discusses at some length just why "Vanity Fair" is a great novel and is still read. Though I admit to the merit of such literary disquisitions, for me it is a simple matter. "Vanity Fair" is an absorbing, amusing, penetrating story.
It is full of sound commentary on the human race, and it has considerable value as a chronicle of either Victorian times, in which it was written, or the Napoleonic era, which it describes.
His characterizations are unforgettable. Becky Sharp may be the villainess, as Beach suggests, but Thackeray at one point comments that though this is "A Novel Without a Hero," Becky does come close to being the heroine. She is certainly the character around whom almost all the action takes place.
Theekeray was painting a Victorian moral for us, but to what extent? Who are his likable, believable people in "Vanity Fair"? Becky, first of all. Her unfortunate husband Rawdon Crawley, for another. Sir Pitt Crawley, the elder, the old scoundrel, for another. Poor dumb Jos Sedley for another. Miss Crawley, and even old man Osborne, for two more. All are bad ones.
Involved it certainly is, and perhaps it could be edited. But it is always enjoyable when Thackeray leaves the story for awhile to paint a moral or so, or give a discussion of literary fashions, or tell us how all of us behave in Vanity Fair.
Does Thackeray really like the fine and wonderful Amelia, or the faithful Dobbin? Neither is a real person. Amelia is tediously good, and Dobbin a bit monotonous.
"Vanity Fair" is one of the most obvious novels ever written, Thackeray always making sure that we have not missed anything, that we know his point of view on all that takes place. He is the omniscient author here, carefully moving about to fill us in on the story, the motivations, the minds and hearts of his people.
THE PIT. by Frank Norris. Evergreen Books, $2.95.
The bitter mood of determinism which characterized "The Octopus," while not entirely lacking in "The Pit," is not nearly so successfully carried through. Frank Norris seemed to be convinced that the Wheat, as an elemental life force, was able to overpower a mere human antagonist, but this naturalistic theme seems to have been dragged in by the hind feet.
One can read "The Pit" for much of its length and regard it as a domestic drama. Ostensibly it is a story of Chicago, and the second volume of Norris' projected, but not completed, trilogy of wheat. But largely it demonstrates how two people survive a marriage that almost collapsed when the husband gave all his time and energy to becoming the "Great Bull" on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Despite the fact that "The Pit" does not entirely succeed, it still is a landmark in naturalistic fiction. The wheat remains a powerful symbol to Norris, and we see here what can happen to people who are thrown into financial conflict. Curtis Jadwin, the hero, almost loses his wife, Laura, in his speculative fever, and Laura comes to realize that she should have been taking a greater interest in her husband's business activities.
Norris had been deeply critical of the railroad officials in "The Octopus." In this novel he has become more admiring of the man of finance and industry. It is a significant change, and it may account for the lesser impact of "The Pit."
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
by Dick Bibler