University Daily Kansan, March 4, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas (USP5) 620-640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Fint Hall. Lawrence, Kan 6045, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday. Sunday, holidays and final periods second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan 6044. Subscriptions by mail are $1 for six months or $8 for six months or $3 a year outdoor to the county. Student subscriptions are $1 and $2 per semester or $3 per address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 StauFFER Fint Hall. Lawrence, Kan 6045.
MATT DEGALAN Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
General Manager and News Adviser
DAVID NIXON Campus Sales Manager
DUNCAN CALHOUN MARY BERNICA
Retail Sales National Sales
Manager Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Parking changes
Time and money are two things that most people could use a little more of.
And if the KU Parking and Traffic Board has its way, students may have more time but, depending on where they park, less money.
The board has suggested that parking violators be allowed 15 working days to pay parking tickets, instead of the 14 calendar days that they have under the present system.
The board also recommended issuing a notice of the ticket to the violator six working days after the ticket had been issued.
These changes would be an improvement. Students could always use "just a few more days."
And the notification would be useful for those who either did not find the issued ticket on their car or would like to use this excuse to avoid paving the fine.
But the other recommendations of the board do not offer students such benefits.
One of the other proposals, to increase the parking in toll lots by 25 cents, is based on illogical rationale.
The board said that raising the rate to 75 cents would bring the cost of parking in a tow lot in line with the cost of a day at a parking meter.
But metered parking is scattered throughout the University, offering drivers the chance to park close to their destination. The toll lots, on the other hand, require parking next to Memorial Stadium and walking.
While the inconvenience is not great, it does seem that those willing to walk from the toll lot should be able to enjoy a savings of 25 cents for their effort.
Another proposed change, to extend the evening restrictions on blue zone parking by one hour, would also work against students.
Currently, those returning to campus in the evenings are restricted from parking in the blue zones until 7:30 p.m. Extending that time by one hour makes parking even more of a hassle for students.
The extra time is nice. It would be nice to keep the money in the pockets of the parkers also, if that's not asking too much.
Holiest of holies
It is that bone-jarring time of year again, the time between the spring thaw and the workers' chance to patch the streets.
The sunshine brings melted snow, and it will soon bring green grass. It is an annual coming of spring, an assurance that Old Man Winter is loosening his grip.
But as the ground thaws, gaping holes appear in the streets. No matter how hard street crews try to keep up, more of the axle-busting holes appear.
Permanent repairs will not be possible until the warm weather arrives to stay, but temporary measures are being taken by city and campus crews to fill the most severe offenders.
Crews are even working extra hours to keep a bad situation from getting worse.
So be patient when you see a driver swerving madly to avoid doing several hundred dollars worth of damage to his vehicle. Don't yell at people who don't go as fast as you would like them to.
And slow down just a little to add to the margin of safety between cars. The axle you save may be your own.
Another legislative time bomb
Civil rights are a lot like good health: most everyone likes the idea.
Shrewd liberals in the Congress are counting on the good will of the folks back home as they attempt to use civil rights rhetoric against them. In the arm of the state into heretofore unregulated sectors of society.
Under the guise of the "Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1985," this new effort to extend the feds' control was born out of a 1984 Supreme Court case, commonly referred to as the "Grove City" case. The court held, among other things, that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — barring sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal money — applies only to the program itself, not to the entire institution.
receive federal aid, the institution as a whole was a recipient of federal aid, hence subject to federal regulation.
Grove City College, a private institution which has always refused government funds and which has never been accused of discrimination, was the locus of the controversy. The Department of Education earlier had decided that since some of Grove City College's students
The reversal of the Department of Education ruling prompted Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and friends to introduce legislation that, Kennedy
says, does no more than restore civil rights to their pre-Grove interpretation. In fact, if that is all he and his allies want then they easily could become a national-backed bill sponsored by senate Major Leader Robert Dolet
They have ambitions, however, to give the federal government even more power than it had before Grove City.
The Kennedy bill, for example, has no exclusion of coverage for the ultimate beneficiaries of federal aid. As reported in the Feb. 23 issue of "Human Events" magazine, staff members of Sen. Orr. Hatch, U.S., contend that "the farmers receiving crop subsidies, businessmen receiving small Business administration loans and individual aid recipients could all be made subject to the civil rights statute for the first time."
Mark Distler, general counsel to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, adds that not only would an entire educational institution be covered by federal regulations if one program within the school received federal aid, but all operations of every edge on university within that same jurisdiction are handled. That is, if just one department of one school in a system receives federal aid, then every school in that system is open to federal control.
He also points out that the term "other school systems" is meant to apply to private religious elementary
and secondary school systems that are not now controlled by the federal government.
Worst of all, there is a catchall provision that says this expansion of coverage that applies to educational institutions can be applied to any other entity. With a little imaginative advocacy the bill can be construed to apply to nearly everyone.
Many people will automatically be inclined to support the Kennedy-backed bill because of its ostensible support for civil rights. But if individuals are to retain some semblance of freedoms from suffocating bureaucratic control, people have to realize just what this bill is not: a good faith attempt to clarify and protect our civil rights.
Instead, it is a surreptitious attempt to further control our lives from Washington, D.C.
Noted constitutional authority Professor Charles Fried of Harvard Law School branded the act a legislative nuclear time bomb" when it was introduced last year. Let's defuse it this year.
Running into prejudice everywhere
It must have been a rather pathetic scene — three adults disrupting a race to keep a young athlete from competing.
The athlete, 18-year-old Zola Budd, was forced from the cross-country course by people protesting racial oppression in South Africa.
Budd's brief international athletic career has been marred by controversy because she was born and raised in New York, although she is now a British citizen.
The recent English National Cross Country Championships in Birkenhead, which Budd was favored to win, ended in disaster for her because three people of incredible insensitivity and stupidity chose her as a political target.
What they hoped to prove by harassing an athlete competing under the British flag is beyond me.
Now, most of us oppose apartheid,
which is the most cruel and repressive form of government that exists
in this world. Many of us support the protests against the South African embassy and other political targets.
A few of us even support the withdrawal of foreign investment in South Africa to weaken the economic position of a foul and brutal regime.
But nowhere does Zola Budd fit into these activities. She was legally entitled to British citizenship, albeit not with the fact that it was granted to her so quickly.
It may not be fair that Budd had this opportunity when the vast majority of South Africans do not.
But who among us can say we would have acted differently if we had to make the difficult decisions when it came to the age she was forced to decide?
Forcing her from the race was not a courageous political statement, if that is what it was intended to be.
It was an act that abused the rights and freedoms of an individual, the same abuse the protesters claimed to be against.
Running Budd out of the race was an act of lawlessness that undermines the credibility and moral authority of the movements that seek to bring genuine change to South Africa.
native land. She seeks to make no political statements by her athletic activities. She just wants to run.
Budd. a shy, sensitive athlete, who happens to have world-class ability, is not responsible for apartheid in her
She has been booed while running, has been called "white trash" by those who think she should not be competing, and has suffered the embarrassment of her collision with Docker in Olympic competition.
All this she has borne with a grace and maturity well beyond her 18 years.
Those who forced Budd out of the race deserve the same treatment as muggers or others who commit acts of violence against individuals.
To continue to make Budd the target of harrassment may be easy. But it will not change the racial policies of South Africa.
Instead, it spreads the poison of intolerance and runs the life of one more individual.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
As an instructor in American government, I have been only mildly shaken that the concepts of pluralism, freedom and equality have been all but overlooked by the disputants in the whole matter of funding for Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas and the general social environment in which all manner of people participate.
I have come to accept the cultural differences between my home state of California and Kansas. I have therefore viewed the ludicrous intolerance of homosexual men and women with equanimity and resignation.
Gazing at the Feb. 20 University Daily Kansan from the seignity of my hot tub, I was moved to put down my glass of fine North Coast white zinfandel. In the letters to the editor section James D. Oss found himself
I am only a little more astonished that those who have been so blithe in their perceptions fail to see their own potential victimhood. But now the issue has taken a new stripe and has gone too far.
in the position to attack not one, but two, other innocent things at once — homosexuality and the state of California.
I won't dignify Oss' argument per se. I want to inform Oss and his fellows from this great inverted bowl of darkness otherwise called the Middle West that all of my prejudices have been revived, and I hope he and others who agree with him can do without the beauty, innovation, food, wine and general magnificence of the Golden State.
Reporter's shield
Howard A. Faye
San Francisco graduate student
Howard A. Faye
I would like to express my appreciation to reporter Nancy Haney and the Kansan for its informative article about the reporter's shield law that has been proposed in the Kansas Legislature. However, as a primary source for the article, which appeared in the Feb. 27 edition, I feel compelled to correct errors.
To the editor
Reporter's privilege — the privilege to refuse to disclose confidential sources of information in court — is confused with qualified privilege. The latter provides a defense against failure to answer fair and accurate account of a court hearing or other official proceeding. They are not related.
Also, the story incorrectly states that the applicability of Kansas' current reporter's privilege is to be decided in each case by a jury. Actually, it is the trial judge who decides whether a reporter's privacy is necessary to justify final action in a specific case because the information sought is relevant and necessary to the defense or prosecution.
It is precisely because of this case-by-case uncertainty that the new shield law is needed. Reporters should know at the time they interview a source whether they can keep a name confidential, rather than waiting to find out from a trial judge whether the privilege protects them and their sources. A privilege that provides such ad hoc, uncertain
protection ends up providing no
protection whatsoever.
Ted Frederickson assistant professor of journalism
Different papers
This is in response to John Quinn's letter and his thoughts on our new "paper," which appeared in the Feb. 19 issue of the University Daily Kansan. Notice, we didn't say newspaper. That is because our business is not reporting each day's news.
To the editor:
As a result of our format, we are a different type of publication from the University Daily Kansan and wish to be recognized as such. If we wanted to try to compete with the Kansan, we would try to obtain $109,000 from Student Senate and enlist the help of journalism students. But we don't.
Instead we raise the money ourselves and let any kind of student write about whatever he or she wants. We also present the more artistic side of students. These aspects are unique to our paper so in
I'm sorry that Quinn didn't consider these facts before he chose to deride In the Streets for faults that really don't exist. Our articles may not be very well-written, but nowhere is it written that eloquence is a prerequisite for a sound opinion.
no way can we be compared with any other publication.
Tim Hamilton
I'm also sorry that he is so utterly opposed to "diversity" beyond the pages of the Kansan, but if he cares to elaborate on his reasons, I'm sure the editors of In the Streets would love to publish his opinion.
Tim Hamilton
Wichita freshman
and writer for In the Streets
Craig Krueger
Craig Krueger
Sioux City, Iowa, junior
and editor for In the Streets
Intolerance sick
To the editor:
Say, that James D. Oss sounds like a real masculine guy in his letter to
the editor in the Feb. 20 University Daily Kansan. The force and determination that come through in his letter let me know that he really means business, and I'd better listen. Oob, I can see his muscles rippling as he cubs up his sleeves for the big fight, the sight just makes me quiver . . .
... in disgust.
Another man, as millions before him since the dawn of time, would like to crush all resistance, difference or threats to his secure social position with the use of his mighty fist. Here is the real sickness in our society. It is the seeds of violence that lead to wars and misery. The sickness is intolerance, and it begets bullets.
It is not a sign of weakness to be tolerant; it is a source of strength. Allowing does not mean condoning — it is the by-product of compassion.
Please spare me your forceful determination, Oss. It just makes me ashamed of you and the culture that treated you.
Melissa Nolte
Lawrence junior