University Daily Kansan, March 5, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Dalian, Kansan. UNISP 650-640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall Law. Kanun 66045, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawen. Kanun 66044 Subscriptions by mail are $1 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year county. Student addresses may be mailed to the LAWEN STUDENTS address changes to the University Dalian, Kansan. 118 Staffer Flint Hall Law. Kanun 66045
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For free speech
This week the Student Senate will decide whether to allocate $3,600 for Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, to speak on campus. Farrakhan, best known for calling Judaism a gutter religion and Hitler a great leader, is a dangerous man with dangerous views.
arrakhan's speech is part of a series that organizers say is designed to bring controversial speakers with diverse views to campus. Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, based in Chicago, is a Black Muslim sect representing between 5,000 and 10,000 members.
and 10,000 members.
There are compelling reasons for calling on the Senate to deny the request of the Black Student Union and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity for the money for Farrakhan's visit. His anti-Semitic statements have offended Jewish groups and go well beyond a simple lack of sensitivity; they raise racial tensions and threaten to incite violence.
He uses the powerful weapon of racial hatred to bring out emotions he thinks will help promote black unity. Instead, he acts as a divisive force in the black community and an embarrassment to black leaders.
Farrakhan strongly supported Jesse Jackson in last year's presidential campaign, and his comments often backed Jackson into a political corner. In March 1984, Farrakhan threatened Milton Coleman, the Washington Post reporter who broke the story on Jackson's "Hymie" joke. Farrakhan called Coleman, who is black, a traitor and said, "One day soon we will purnish you with death."
Despite these reasons, denying the money for Farrakhan's visit would be a mistake. Like it or not, Farrakhan is a national figure who generates great public interest.
Groups disagreeing with Farrakhan's views and the use of Senate money to finance his visit should press the Senate to finance speakers representing their own views. They also have the right to peacefully protest Farrakhan's visit.
To deny the money for Farrakhan's visit would amount to censorship and a vote against the free expression of ideas. Let Farrakhan come and say his piece. The listeners can decide on the validity of his arguments and the merit of his message.
Growing pains
Farming has gone from glorious boom to gloom and doom in the past five years.
One out of every five farmers in Kansas and other Midwest states won't be able to plant crops this spring without emergency help, according to a recent Farm Journal survey.
While the Reagan administration clings adamantly to its long-term farm proposals to phase out subsidies, lawmakers are trying to respond to this crisis.
"The best thing to do for farmers is to reduce the deficit," said Senate Majority leader Bob Dole.
Getting immediate help to farmers commands precedence.
Eventually, though, the government should stop subsidizing agriculture. Farming, like other industries, needs to return to an open market system. Farmers have seen nothing resembling a free agricultural market for 50 years.
But in the short term, because government meddling helped bring on the farm crisis, the government should help bail out the farmers.
Congress ignored Reagan's threat of a presidential veto last week and passed legislation which will help farmers with spring planting.
But while Dole has infuriated Kansas farmers by voting against the emergency farm bills, he is certainly right about the federal deficit. The borrow-and-spend tailspin isn't working any better for the farmers than it is for the government.
Finding solutions to issues as complex as the farm crisis and the deficit is difficult.
For the government to consider phasing out farm programs without addressing politically influenced financial and trade issues is folly.
Agricultural economists forecast a bright future for farmers, though, in the long run.
farmers realize this. And their awakened anger and power grows as they join together.
To survive in the world market without subsidies, farmers selling the same commodities will have to band together for strength.
Farmers have always been an extremely diverse group with divergent ideas about farm policy. But they, particularly those who wish to uphold the traditional family farm, are discovering that they must rally and work together if they are to save themselves.
The University Dally Kansan invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 625 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. Columns can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject columns.
GUEST COLUMNS
Problem namely at Hucklesbee High
Yesterday, a care package from my great Aunt Ethel arrived. In it were the usual things: handknitted socks that didn't fit, the "slightly old" chocolate chip cookies and a bookmarker complete with an inspirational Bible verse.
She also included this clipping, dated Feb. 22, from the Texas Daily Fishwrap, the local newspaper she subscribes to. It seems as if the folks down there have their own ideas about the religion-in-schools problem.
HUCKLEBEE, Texas — Talk in coffee shops and offices of this sleepy, east Texas town off U.S. Highway 35 centers on its only high school. But this week, a name ball team is on residents' minds.
The discussion began last month, when a parents' group, Huckleberry Residents for Life at Its Cleanest!, petitioned the local school board to change the name of High School to God High School.
quest at the Feb. 4 meeting of the Hucklesburg School Board. The matter is on the agenda of the board's Mar. 4 meeting.
Group members made the re-
"Public education here and across our great, Christian nation is faltering, and it's time to give it
JOHN
HANNA
Staff Colu
Staff Columnist
some moral strength," said Myrtle Crabtree, president of the parents' group. "We think that it is time to make a stand for God and for traditional values."
Crabtreet and Homer Gadfly, the group's vice president, point out that Hucklebee is a deeply religious community — more than 100 churches can be found within city limits, and the high school gymnasium is used regularly for revival meetings.
School district officials had no comment last week, but a survey by the Huckleberry Drone, the local newspaper, indicated that about 51 percent of the town's residents thought the new name was a good idea.
Even some students who go to Hucklesbury High School like the idea. Seth Walkman, a 16-year-old who expressed the sympathies of many.
"It would be pretty cool," he said. "People would ask you what school you went to, and you could say, 'God.' Our basketball team might even win some games."
But not everyone is in favor of the proposed name change another group. Huckleberry was part of the party last day, 'was formed last week in response.
Grady Spruce, a Hucklesbee lawyer, started the group, which now has about 50 members. Its first meeting was held in his law office on Main Street.
Spruce has threatened to sue on behalf of several parents in his
group if the board approves the name change.
Last week, members of Hucklebs Residents for Life at its Cleanest! started to picket Spruce's law office. Gadfly said he could not understand Spruce's anger.
"At best, the idea shows the arrogance of its supporters. What about the agnostics here? Or the astheists?"
"No one's rights are being violated here," he said. "Besides, we are one nation under God, indivisible. The founders were Christian. They meant to have religious freedom, but they never sought to keep it entirely of the secular realm."
Spruce said he had heard such arguments before.
"Pethaps we are one nation under God." he said. "But it is not the same god for everyone, and not everyone believes in a god. I think we have to be careful that, in our fervor for majority rule, we don't step on people because they have different ideas."
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
This letter is meant to inform students and the general public about the policies concerning non-revenue athletes at the University of Kansas, non-revenue meaning any sport other than football or basketball.
In my three years at the University of Kansas, I am asashed at the lack of support students and faculty give to non-revenue athletes. The Athletic Department does a terrible job of promoting non-revenue sports here at KU. Can you identify a single member of the Kansas women's swim team? How many years in a row have they won the Big Eight Championship? We've had several All Big Eight and a few All Americans who were non-revenue athletes at this University. Needless to say, one could probably name more walk-ons in football.
Not only are there problems with getting students involved, there has been little support from the Athletic Department. Anschutz Sports Pavilion, built supposedly for all sports, has only been used by football and track thus far. The Kansas baseball and softball teams have yet to set foot on the field. The pavilion is reason being that the Athletic Department is still waiting for protective nets to put over the windows of the pavilion.
These nets were supposedly ordered sometime in August by the department. If the University can, in eight months, have a $3.1 million dollar spread, why not just few hundred dollars worth of protective nets come in?
Monte Johnson brags of being able to put a 747 jetliner inside Anschutz, how can it be possible that athletes can't throw a softball or baseball in something that spacious? Needless to say, this problem has set both teams far behind in their preseason conditioning.
There could be complications with the baseball team but the softball team? Let's be serious. I'm sure the coaches of these two sports know what drills would put those priceless windows in jeopardy.
The Kansas football team is
already preparing for their drive in '85. What about non-revenue athletes who don't have a building to begin the drive in at all?
Hugh Stanfield St. Louis junior
Uncensored idea
To the editor:
I was appalled at Brian Wagner's column, "The evolution of American morality," which appeared in the Feb. 26 issue of the University Daily. The controversy of its censorship issue of evolution of his simplicit and slanted.
Wagner's reaction to the efforts of scientists and groups against the censorship of evolution was clearly just that, a reaction. He has apparently given little thought to and has little understanding of the issue.
Wayne Moyer's study commissioned by Norman Lear's People for the American Way was an attempt to call people's attention to how serious the crisis of censorship of evolution has been. He emphasized simply that some biology texts failed to include the word evolution; it was that some omitted the subject totally.
The process of evolution is generally accepted as fact by most biologists, and while they may quibble about precisely how the process takes place or of the origin of formal cause, there is a consensus. The fact that the theory of evolution permeates so much biological research, and is implicit in many principles of biology, makes the failure to discuss it in a general biology course simply ludicrous and seriously undercuts the value of such a course.
Lear's efforts are not directed at the censorship of fundamentalist beliefs, but directed to ensure that those people who are fundamentalist do not censor those who are not. The "Left," those malicious bioethical and general ethical agents trying to remove the name Jesus removed from the Bible as Wagner's mock conversation implied. They do not reciprocate censorship.
Most educators are interested in academic freedom and the free and
open pursuit of truth. If individuals are to make informed choices, they must be informed. Wagner seems to be frustrated with the "Let's" supposed control of the media and education. Lear, Moyer and Ower discuss the importance of liberal morality to the nation, only to see that a scholarly view be presented.
There is no persuasive argument for preventing people from informing themselves, be it parents preventing their children from learning about evolution or biologists stopping their evolution, being informed about creationism.
People should try and be allowed to maximize their understanding about a plethora of issues. As for who believes in the "simplistic" theory of evolution, I do, and so do a great number of other educated people.
Alfred G. Pitzner
Wichita sophomore
Paying for bigots
To the editor:
If the University of Kansas has an obligation to maintain a "free marketplace of ideas," then it can't deny Louis Farrakhan the opportunity to come here and set up a soap box even if he uses it to preach his self-awarded, anti-white, anti-Semitic gospel. However, there is no obligation to make the academic marketplace lucrative for bigots.
His lecture, the University Daily Kansan's story intimates, is being justified on the grounds that it will "broaden educational experiences." If your readers are curious about the historical pedigree of this peculiar definition of a liberal education, they should consult Edward Hartshorne's classic, "The German Universities and National Socialism" (1987), now available in a timely reprint edition.
This, in my view, is what the Student Senate Finance Committee is in the process of doing by tentatively allocating $3,600 to pay for Farrarhau's appearance as a Black Student Union lecturer.
One final point: If academically subsidized, academically sponsored hate is indeed "educationally broadening," then the Finance Committee and the BSU are making a poor economic decision. They should reverse themselves by dropping Farrakhan in favor of Richard Butler, a member of the Aryan mob led by Abdualdeh宝 the Army would defame both blacks and Jews for the same fee — thereby providing twice as much "broadening" bigotry per buck.
To the editor
Harold Brackman visiting assistant professor of history
Streets can close
It is very difficult to understand the unanimous vote of the City Commission to deny the request to close a part of Stewart Avenue for the annual fund-raising event for Hillary Clinton. The closing of streets in our city for various reasons certainly has a long history.
We do close Massachusetts Street for Art in the Park for the safety and convenience of our citizens. We have closed Naishtim Drive north of 19th Street for a residence hall party. Why can't a street that only serves several fraternities and a sorority be closed for this annual fund-raising event?
Does our present City Commission consider students "second-class" citizens of our community? Lawrence is most eager and enthusiastic to accept the dollars spent by students. It seems to me that these students who are citizens also deserve more consideration.
I certainly hope that in the future we do not ban events such as the Band Day parade, football and basketball games, Art in the Park, and Independence Day in Riverfront Park. All these events also create some inconvenience for a great number of our citizens.
I hope the organizers of this campuswide party will proceed with their plans and that the party is a safe and successful event.
Bob Pulliam City Commission candidate