University Daily Kansan, March 18, 1985
OPINION
Page 4.
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Dally Kaman (USP5 60-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Fitt Hall Lawn, Kan. 6645; daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence. Kan. 6644; Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student postage is free. The address changes on the University Daly Kaman, 118 Staffer Fitt Hall Lawn, Kan. 6645
MATT DEGALAN Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
DUNCAN CALHOUN MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
General Manager and News Adviser
DAVID NIXON Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
The right move
It was probably a wise move.
On March 7, William Easley, student body president, vetoed an amendment asking that football player Roderick Timmons be dismissed from the football team. Timmons was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery in July.
The amendment also required that the Athletic Department revoke Timmons' scholarship. It was tacked on to a bill increasing students' financial support of women's and non-revenue sports by $2.
In this case. Easlev was right.
The authority to punish Timmons does not rest with Student Senate. Nowhere in its rules or regulations does it allow itself the power to punish a non-senator student for his behavior. Nor should Sepate have this power.
And the amendment, in essence, would have been punishing Timmons a second time. That does not seem fair, either. Timmons' case went to trial before a jury. The jury and the judge made their decisions. The University of Kansas is not and never has been part of the judicial system. If all the students with criminal records were kicked out of school, enrollment probably would drop noticeably.
Another consideration: What if the Athletic Department had not honored the amendment? Who would have been hurt? Not Timmons and not the football team. Non-revenue sports would have felt the weight of the decision.
Admittedly, the amendment did have a sound foundation. The University should have, or should at least consider, a policy stating that people who commit violent crimes cannot represent KU. Such people do not improve the reputation of the school and do nothing to pull in alumni support.
A certain amount of responsibility is invested in student leaders. As lofty as the idea may seem, they are expected to live up to certain standards, and that includes not violating the law.
Many questions remain: Who should decide who can and who can't represent the University? Where do you draw the line — at misdemeanors or felonies? To whom does the rule apply — students, faculty, organizations and sports?
But the place to start is in considering a University policy from the appropriate source instead of passing a specific amendment that only will punish Timmons.
Strife of the Irish
Each year on St. Patrick's Day, Americans turn their attention to Ireland, a land whose famines, wars and rebellions have sent millions of immigrants to the United States since the 1840s.
In admiring the Irish, Americans often forget the tragedy of a nation divided and plagued by civil strife. In the past 40 years, thousands of people have been killed in what amounts to a civil war between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
Strife is not new to the Irish. It was a part of the Irish existence even before the British first invaded the island in the 12th century. The past 800 years are marked with countless efforts to push the British out of Ireland.
In 1921, after seven years of civil war, the British gave most of Ireland a measure of independence by making all but the six northern counties a member of the British Commonwealth. In 1949, the Republic of Ireland was formally declared. The northern counties, however, voted against joining the republic and chose to remain under British rule.
Northern Ireland's fate for the next 35 years — and undoubtedly many more — was thus sealed. A divided Ireland has been the scene of continual violence since 1949. The Irish Republican Army recently has stepped up its bombing campaign.
In February, the Irish Republican Army struck again, killing nine people in a mortar attack on a police station and proving their resiliency in the face of British efforts to stamp them out. Press reports said Catholic youths cheered the attack and motorists honked horns in approval as they drove by the bomb site. Most Catholics in Northern Ireland probably don't approve of the IRA's methods, but they do resent British rule.
This resentment is made worse by religious differences and economic inequalities, but the British military presence and the control it secures strike at the heart of the problem. Until the British pull out and Ireland is united in one nation, the violence will continue.
The University Daily Kansas welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and hometown, or faculty or staff position. The Kansas also invites inquiries and groups to submit guest columns. Columns are posted on the website or brought to the Kansas office. 111 Staffer-Finl Hall. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Ferraro part of Pepsi generation
I apologize for being the last columnist in the United States to comment on the Geraldine Ferraro-Diet Pessi arrangement.
But while I was out, you couldn't help noticeing all the remarks about Ferraro's decision to make a television commercial for Diet Pepi. Ferraro accepted a response of 1,000 for the 30-second commercial.
U. S. journalists have gone into what Tom Wolfe calls their "Victorian gentleman" persona in writing about Ferraro's decision. The posture the journalists have adopted is one of prissy shock. If I were to paraphrase what has been written about Ferraro and Diet Pepsi, it would come out something like "Oooh! How dare she! She is a public servant, and the modern men and women who believed her in seriousness! She has sold out!" I disagree. I think Ferraro did exactly the right thing.
Think about it. A year ago today, it is safe to say, less than 1 percent of the nation's population knew who Geraldine Ferraro was. Today that figure undoubtedly approaches 100 percent.
Why is this? For one simple reason: Wendy Mondale asked her to be his running mate. It was the political equivalent of asking her for a date, and she accepted. Three questions arise, question
Those skeptics who question
Mondale's nobility of purpose thought he asked her for one reason: He knew he had absolutely no chance of defeating Ronald Reagan, and his desperate hope was that enough American women would vote for a ticket that included a woman that he might be able to pull off the miracle and beat Reagan.
If that was Mondale's reasoning, he was being unreasonable. Not only did the strategy fail, but the
BOB
GREENE
Syndicated
Columnist
Mondale-Ferraro ticket went down to one of the most humiliating defeats in U.S. political history. It wouldn't have mattered which male Democrat Mondale might have asked to be his running mate, that ticket couldn't have done much worse.
So the election year ended.
Mondale went off to lick his wounds. And Ferro discovered
the most famous women in the world.
She has signed two large contracts. One is with a publishing house to write a book about her political experiences. For that she
has been paid a reported $1 million, and she doesn't even have to write the thing; a ghostwriter is doing it for her.
The other large contract is with Diet Pensi - $500.000.
So here you have a woman who, a year ago, virtually no one outside of New York and Washington had access to her library for a book million for a book she doesn't have to write and for a TV commercial that lasts all of 30 seconds.
Good for her.
She got lucky - it's as simple as that. Mondale, reaching for a political miracle, plucked her out of obscurity, and now her name means something.
Now Ferraro has the chance to make some easy money. That guarantees her family a comfortable life for a long time. She didn't do anything shameful for the money; she simply loaned her friends $200,000 in soft drink company. It's not as if she's pushing heroin.
The press — the Victorian gentleman — disapproves of this. But what if Ferraro had done what they wanted her to do? What if she had said no to the money from Diet Pepsi, had sat quietly for a while and then asked the elective office again? Would the press have praised her then?
No. The press would have done two things. First, it would have started investigating her
husband's finances again. And second, it would have started writing stories that begin like this:
"It itse like just yesterday that she was crisscrossing the country on chartered jets, moving through crowds with the assistance of Secret Service agents and appearing on network newscasts every morning and night. But Wednesday a somewhat lonely-looking Geraldine Ferraro campaigned before 12 people in a church basement — and there is no guarantee that efforts like Wednesday's will make her a winner."
For that she should have given up the $500,000? There is no indication that the American public feels the same way that the press feels about the Diet Pepsi commercial; another commercial would be better. Chrysler, is being talked about as a possible presidential candidate
and that in large part because he is so good in television commercials.
Face it: Had Walter Mondale followed his first instinct and selected Mayor Diane Feinstein of San Francisco to be his running mate. Feinstein would be receiving the commercial offers now. He didn't. He chose Ferraro, and because of that piece of good fortune, she gets to pick up the $50,000. That's how luck runs.
Cheers.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
5 lies bv whom?
To the editor:
Having just been given a pamphlet titled "5 Lies About Gays" by a member of New Life Student Fellowship, I feel a responsibility to set the record "straight," as it were. Then I could decide which are the real lies.
1. "The gay" life is a sad life. New Life's pamphlet tells that homosexuals contemplate and attempt suicide (far more) frequently than heterosexuals. This is an out-and-out lie. There is no scientific evidence even to suggest that homosexuals behave in this way, and I challenge anyone to provide hard, scientific proof that this statement is true.
2. They are born that way. New Life argues that homosexuality is a "learned disorder." First of all, the American P-ylahatic Association no longer considers homosexuality a disorder at all. That has been tried since 1978. If you don't believe me, ask a member of the association.
3. Their rights demand special protection in a just society. In this statement, New Life compares homosexuals to alcoholics, who do not have comparable disorder — alcoholism. It's like comparing animals and cats.
4. They are worse sinners than any others. New Life says that homosexuals are no greater sinners than idolaters, adulterers, thieves, slenders or swonders. Well, I agree to a certain extent; they are no greater sinners. But at least homosexuals don't take advantage of innocent people or steal their money or their wives or husbands.
I say let God judge. I'm willing to trust his judgment a lot sooner than I trust the judgment of those in New Life Student Fellowship.
5. They cannot change. Again, New life compares homosexuals to alcoholics. First, there is again no chance of sexual intercourse in chapters of Homosexuals Anonymous springing up all over the country. And New Life ignores the possibility that those who "change" their religion by saying they are angry parents or an angry church.
Nevertheless, I don't see homosexuality as a "habit" to break. I see it as a sexual orientation. And why must we all be the same anyway?
Your world, New Lifers, leaves no room for those who do not mimic the majority.
I have made my peace with God, and I am willing to wait and see what will happen in the final judgment But, then, that is my business, not yours. I don't mind your exposing "lies" about homosexuality as long as you don't lie yourself in doing so. I'm living a sin?
Another vote no
Coffeyville graduate student
Douglas Stallings
To the editor:
Who is Louis Farrakhan, and why should we protest his speaking on campus March 28?
Jolie Mangan presented both sides in her article of Feb. 28." (Committee approves money for Farrakhan visit.) She quotes Luca Jellinek, a Student Senate Finance Committee member, as saying, "Turning away Farrakhan because of possible controversial remarks would not eliminate the existence of such attitudes." But, Jellinek continues, "If someone is saying something against the Jews, I don't want to put my head in the sand. I want to hear what they have to say."
Well, Jellinek, if you want to hear someone publicly degrade people there are other alternatives besides bringing Farakrahka here to do it. He has publicly referred to Judahism as a "gater religion" and as "dirt." He threatened to attack Coleman after he wrote a story revealing derogatory remarks made by Jesse Jackson claiming, "someday we will punish you with
deth" (Kansas City Times, March 2). And last week Farrakhan rejected an offer of military training and weapons from Libyan leader Moammar Khadafi stating that black Americans don't want to overthrow the U.S. military by use of force — i.e. other alternatives exist.
You are right, Mangan, in that being a democratic state we all have the same right to freedom of speech, but since 1865, we have laws to abolish slavery and eliminate discrimination in an attempt to allow all groups to live together in a more peaceful United States.
With the current militaristic anti-democratic crazies in this world who, given the chance, would disruff life as we know it (I refer to Khadady, Khomeini, Abu Nidal), I don't see the point in allocating our Student Senate funds — $3,600 — to bring Farrakkh to campus.
Farrakhan has alarmed many blacks and many non-blacks alike. The possible tensions created toward and among blacks of this campus would have a longer-lasting effect than the duration of his stay.
He should not be granted the authority, much less be paid, to state his discriminatory opinions in public, let alone on this campus.
David Porter
Overland Park senior
And one vote yes
To the editor:
I am inclined to inquire: How many of those complaining have actually heard a full Farakhan speech?
Every day for the last few weeks, I've been bombarded by the media's reacount of Louis Farrakhan's "slanderous" statements, which have hurt the feelings of Jewish people all across the world.
1. as well as many other blacks.
Being a minority has put me in the position of feeling distraught and upset by racist remarks just as the Jewish community is now feeling.
don't condone the use of racial slurs against any individual or race. Prejudice is an issue that Jewish and secular leaders regularly hurt by throughout the years.
What needs to be made clear is that Farrakhan is one man — one man stating his own arduous opinion of the president. He could it, and should be for his race.
I know that there are millions of others in my nationality who share these same views.
The point we must distinguish and understand is that there always will be people's views that hurt or offend you.
Black leaders such as Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X preached of separatism and race promotion — and were hated by thousands of racists Martin Luther King Jr. preached of love, unification and security among all of us as God's children, and he was assassinated for his efforts.
But it can be endured and deal with, thanks to the people who take the initiative not to be caught up in the current racial tension that has been perpetrated by the media, sensationalism, bias and ambiguity.
In this country — this bastion of "democracy" — you have the choice of hearing Farrakhan or not. If you dislike Farrakhan, what he stands for and what you heard he has said, don't attend his forum.
But don't judge an entire race on the actions or views of one man; protesting is your right, but it is also a freedom to be heard via freedom of speech.
As long as we continue to condone and advocate-racial prejudices and tensions, we will always remain "slaves of the mind . . ."
Warren D. Wilhoite Winslow, Ariz., graduate student
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