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4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2003
TALKTOUS
Kristi Henderson
editor
864-4854 or khenderson@kansan.com
Jenna Goepert and Justin Henning managing editors
864-4854 or goepert@kansan.com and jhenneng@kansan.com
Leah Shaffer
readers representative
864-4810 or ishaffer@kansan.com
Amanda Sears and Lindsay Hanson
864-4924 philomann@kansan.com
Eric Ketting business manager 864-4358 or adsales@kansan.com
Sarah Jantz
retail sales manager
864-4358 or adsales@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and review
adviser
864-766-7401 malcolm.gibson.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
Semester's headlines in review
Avariety of issues kept the editorial board busy for the Spring 2003 semester. Here's a look back at some of the biggest in no particular order.
The men's basketball team — Rock, chalk, Jayhawk! The Jayhawks put Kansas in the national spotlight with a road trip to New Orleans.
Roy Williams — disappointing. Williams made his decision to leave and broke the hearts of Jayhawk fans everywhere. Student and fan backlash didn't make it any easier.
Bill Self — Opportunities for puns abound. Although one of the best coaches in the nation, Bill Self will have some big expectations to live up to.
AlBohl—Blah. We will never know if he lost his job because of Roy Williams, but whining and blaming everyone else for it didn't make him look good.
Dennis Dailey's Human Sexuality in Everyday Life class — Controversial. It's hard to believe that a class at the University of Kansas could merit national attention on The O'Rilley Factor two days in a row.
Justice for All - Caution: Activists with gratuitous pictures ahead. The anti-abortion group made a stop in Lawrence and brought its giant pictures of aborted fetuses with it. Deciding to set up shop in the heart of campus was a controversial move.
War in Iraq — various protests and counter-protests — It's great that students can voice their opinions on a national issue as important as this and overuse the word "patriotism" in the process.
Student Senate Elections — One sided. You know there's something wrong with the system when the entire freshman-sophomore class will be represented entirely by KUnited.
■ Online Enrollment - problematic. It was supposed to remove the hassle of waiting in a line, but caused a lot of headaches in the process.
SARS and study abroad — Achoo, Students will be paranoid about going to Asia and Canada for a while. At least it's a good excuse for people to cover their mouths when they sneeze, or even stop spitting in the drinking fountain.
Day on the Hill — The greatest disappearing act all semester.
Jon Ralston for the editorial board
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EXQUISITE RELIEF
PERSPECTIVE
All faculty must support Dailey
Amid the criticism of social welfare professor Dennis Dailey, it's time for faculty at the University of Kansas—not just employees of the School of Social Welfare — to rally support for academic freedom. This rally wouldn't be just for Dailey's sake; it would be for the sake of future education on behalf of the students and faculty at the University.
The University must rally to enlighten the uninformed. Friday, a prominent figure in this group, Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, presented a 16-page packet of complaints against Dailey and the "Human Sexuality in Everyday Life" class to the Legislature. The packet outlined grievances from anonymous students, former students and others. It's possible the complaints were valid, but anonymous submissions should hold much less credibility than ones from people willing to give their names. These letters provided no concrete, tangible evidence to support the accusations. One, from a student who took the class more than 10 years ago, alleged that Dailey once said he was sexually aroused by children. The comment provided no context.
Another piece of "evidence," an "affidavit" submitted by an anonymous audio/video technician at Budig Hall, explained that he had not been working his normal shift when he was assigned to work during Dailey's class. Out of context, he saw "blatant sex and foreplay" on screen and became appalled. He wrote up the complaint, had it notarized and removed his own name for its presentation to the Legislature.
GUEST COMMENTARY
If a notary public is all it takes to make something evidence, someone should tell the courts that juries are unnecessary.
Also included in the packet was information from a private investigator based in Lawrence. Virgil Palmer observed the class on March 31 — one day — and deemed it to "lack integrity and contemporary standards" that the University had set. No one has admitted to hiring Palmer, who is licensed through the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Lindsay Hanson
opinion@kansan.com
So Wagle has compiled a few written complaints. Nine, in fact. But that's nine complaints from a pool of more than 15,000 students who have taken the class since Dailey began teaching it in 1979. However few, these nine complaints have spoken to the Legislature. It's understandable that few senators or representatives would vote to continue the teaching of "wheelchair sex" for fear that the vote would mark them as supporters of lewd practices like porn. It's unfortunate that no one explained to the them that "wheelchair sex" day aimed to show that groups deemed asexual by society have human impulses, too.
What of the supporters? Some, such as Lawrence senior Richard Sullivan, who appeared in Daitley's defense on The O'Reilly Factor, have called the class the "most applicable and beneficial course" in college.
But Sullivan is one of the few exercising his voice. The possibility that the words of students will beeline to the Legislature has dampened the once lively discussions, which Dailey has begun basing on anonymous submissions of questions. Of course students would be reluctant to comment when their words could be used against them in future searches for a job, post-college. Although 472 students are enrolled in the class, less than half of them are still attending.
If the Legislature sets a precedent and Wagle's vendetta against Dailey succeeds, the ruling could affect other classes, not just ones dealing in sexual content.
Sullivan likened the atmosphere of the class to "Nazi Germany" and said the sentiment had trickled into his classes outside the School of Social Welfare. Other professors fear they're being monitored, as they should.
A faculty that cares will rally for students and work to give them the opportunity to learn in an uninhibited academic environment. Just as a third grade student is scolded for talking in class and disturbing his neighbor's potential to gain from the teacher's lecture, the faculty and University officials must issue a public scolding to the Legislature.
Those professors must fear no longer.
Instead of complacently agreeing with Wagle, let's show the nation that we support Dailey. Write letters. Organize protests. Let's be the forum that represents the future of academic freedom.
Hanson is a Concordia junior in journalism and Spanish. She is associate opinion editor.
Free for All
Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
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Dude, we just found a picture of our , friend on a porn site.
I have a problem videotaping myself masturbating and then masturbating to those videos. What do I do?
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Student Senate just cut the bus route to the poorest area of Lawrence so that we could have a free bus that goes around campus when we already have buses that go around campus? Hmm.
Anti-abortion activists and rapists have one thing in common: both of them want to control women's lives.
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PERSPECTIVE
You know you're not prepared for class when you actually hope a bolt of lightning will strike you on the way there.
I just want to thank the girls of fourth floor Hash for a great year. It was like being in high school all over again.
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I use the East Lawrence bus route, and without it it would take me an hour to get to school.
I wonder how many relationships end because of cell phone mishaps.
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Is that a condom on top of the Chi Omega fountain?
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For the love of Christ, why did they not put an insignificant key next to the backspace key? Every time I hit insert on accident, I want to just set a puppy on fire, and then stomp out the fire, and then scrape the bloody putt off my shoe and throw it at somebody.
I don't know who this ResNet guy thinks he is, but taking away the internet while I'm downloading porn is definitely unacceptable.
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Crazy Mike kicks ass.
Goodnight Moon, goodnight Hill,
goodnight students on the Campanile,
goodnight ball games and the thrill,
goodnight jeers and go Jayhawk
cheers. Goodnight kittens with the
purple mittens. Goodnight rocks,
goodnight chalks, goodnight Phog's
house, now Bill's house. Goodnight tests
and finals and such, goodnight brains
turned to mush and goodnight to
teachers whispering "hush." Goodnight
stars and Lawrence air, goodnight
Jayhawks everywhere.
Lesson in humility comes from flying frustration
This column is about a bust — a big, bronze bust of Robert F. Kennedy that's half to three-fourths the size of my head. It's also about airlines. Al Qaeda and gaining a new perspective. Don't worry. I'll explain.
The bust was an award—the RFK Journalism Award—that I was honored and humbled to receive. It's given for journalism that brings attention to the disenfranchized—the poor, the disabled and the refugees. I was flown to Washington, D.C., to receive the college division of the award for a story published in 2002 about Robert Gilmore, a man without a home who used to live on the University campus.
GUEST COMMENTARY
Adam Pracht
opinton@kansan.com
In Washington, I realized just how small my project was. Other reports had brought attention to a man wrongly accused of murder. The grand prize winners followed Latin American children travelling north on top of trains to find their parents who went to work in the United States.
When I accepted the bust of Kennedy, I have never been more proud to call myself a journalist and an American.
But the next day my trip turned sour.
I thought it best to warn airport secu
rity they would see a head when they ran my bag through the X-ray. They told me I wasn't able to take it on board because it could be used as a bludgeon. As I tried to negotiate with them, I got the ludicrous image of me holding up an entire airplane with a lump of asymmetrical bronze. They told me I had to put it with check-on luggage or mail it — no exceptions. I wasn't about to trust it to get home as a check-on, so I went looking for the post office.
The nearest full post office would take 20 minutes, round trip. I had to be on the plane in 10. I gave up, packed the bust in my suitcase and checked it. They changed my connection to a later flight to decrease the risk of loss.
After they bused us to the small propeller
they were all in a compartment in back. If I had felt like going on a bloody rampage with RFK's head I would not have been able
I got on the plane fuming. I was already writing an article in my head about the rules of a government that couldn't see a threat if it passed under their magic wand metal detectors; about a world where a peaceful award was a weapon; about a country that had lost its trust in human goodness.
You're not reading that column. I was going to write it; I wanted to write it; but I couldn't. I met Tim.
plane, the final insulting blow came. There wasn't any room for carry-ons to stay with us
Tim and I were seated next to each other, and as he was the nearest set of ears, I began to spout my frustration to him. My rant died out, and I asked him about his life. Though he was friendly, I began to feel small and petty the more I talked with him
Tim was a pilot for 14 years for the airline we were flying but was fired along with one-third of the airline's staff. He didn't tell me his age, but he didn't look much more than 40. There's a limit on how old pilots can be, so his childhood dream of being a
I realized my inconvenience was just that. I was sitting next to an unknown American hero with no plan of where to go. He had no hint of bitterness, no anger in his soft voice. I just said I was sorry.
pilot might be over. He was one of the first pilots to fly on Sept. 11, 2001, on a crosscountry flight that mirrored the doomed planes—full of fuel and beginning in Baltimore. While there's no way to confirm, Tim said U.S. marshalls on his flights had told him Al Qaeda operatives were still testing the security of the airlines. Once, two had rushed to the front while two others had rushed to the back in an unsuccessful attempt to flush out the marshall's identity.
I got my award back safe in Kansas City — the only true inconvenience I've had with raised security. But that attacks that resulted in my annoyance cost this man of bravery his livelihood.
I have the suitcase with the bust sitting in my room, but I have yet to display it. Somehow, after meeting Tim I don't feel so deserving of recognition.
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- Pracht is a Emporia junior in journalism and Spanish.
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