Kings plan move
The University Daily
K.C. team seeks new home in Sacramento, Calif.
See story on page 7.
KANSAN
Cloudy High, 20. Low, 10. Details on page 3.
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas.
Vol. 95, No. 79 (USPS 650-640)
Tuesday, January 22, 1985
New drinking laws to take shape
By MICHAEL TOTTY Staff Reporter
Lobbyists for beer industry and student groups will converge on Topeka this week to help shape legislation that is almost certain to raise the legal drinking age in Kansas to 2.
Only one organization, representing the state's tavern owners, will argue against any increase in the legal drinking age. Instead, it intends to present a plan that would focus on drunken driving and replace any federal laws that might use it if it fails to raise its drinking age.
Last summer Congress passed legislation that requires states to comply with a uniform drinking age by 1869 or lose a percentage of their federal highway aid.
The House Federal and State Affairs Committee will begin hearings this afternoon on the subject. The panel's Senate counterpart will begin its own hearings tomorrow.
"THE DRINKING AGE is going to be raised," State Rep. Robert H. Miller, R-Wellington, chairman of the House committee, said last week. "Now we need to start looking at the more practical details."
Miller said his panel wanted to explore issues that had come up since last year's session! He said panel members understood the safety arguments as well as the economic arguments of the tavern owners. The authors then built a model of wholesalers' proposal and consider the effect on employment opportunities for 18- to 21-year-olds.
But Chris Edmonds, executive director of the Tavern League of Kansas, said that his group was ready to fight against any effort to raise the drinking age.
"I really believe we're on the right side," Edmonds said. "We're going to make a proposal that addresses the problem of drunken driving in all age groups and more than makes up for any lost revenue from federal highway funds.
"WE CAN PROVE with federal data that '10 out of 11 states that have raised their drinking age show a significant increase in number of crashes among the affected group."
The Kansas Beer Wholesalers Association, however, has decided not to fight an increase
KANSAS COULD LOSE $16 million over two years in federal highway aid if it fails to raise its drinking age. Also, a University of Kansas Center for Public Affairs survey found three out of four Kansans polled favored the higher drinking age.
in the state's drinking age. Last week the Senate committee on Federal and State Affairs voted unanimously to introduce a bill written by the wholesalers that would phase in the new drinking age over three years in change for a relaxation of the state's beer laws.
The wholesalers' proposal would permit beer to be sold until 1:30 a.m. and on Sundays. It also rewrites the statute defining cereal milk averages to combine 9.2 percent of milk.
Neal Whitaker, spokesman for the wholesalers' group, said that unless new evidence came to light, the state's current budget would be too small to support the change in the drinking age inevitable.
The Associated Students of Kansas, a statewide, non-partisan student lobbying group, also has resigned itself to the inevitability of a higher drinking age. ASK
plans to offer three proposals it hopes to have included in a new drinking age law.
ASK WANTS THE new law to include a grandfather clause that would allow Kansans now able to buy beer to continue to do so, as well as provisions to allow 18-year-olds to serve beer in restaurants and sell beer in grocery and convenience stores. In addition ASK wants the law broadened to permit 18-year-olds to serve linen in private clubs.
Chris Graves, associate director of ASK, made a statement that legislators made passage of aha law in previous years.
ASK also calls for the adoption of recommendations by the Governor's Committee on Drinking and Driving. The two-year-old proposals would increase financing of alcohol education programs in elementary and secondary schools.
In addition to its proposals, ASK plans to present the results of a survey compiled by John Allen, director of ASK at Fort Hays State University, on the effects of an increase
See DRINK, p. 5, col. 1
Civil rights progress slow, speaker says
BY JOHN RODRIGUEZ Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Government officials have confused the public about affirmative action's attempts to remedy racial inequality in American society, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center said yesterday.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the professor, told the audience that the controversy over affirmative action guidelines was "generated by a few politically motivated politicians who have thus far preferred to exploit the existing puzzle and concern over equality remedies than to offer responsible national leadership."
Eleanor Holmes Norton, professor of law at Georgetown University, passed away in rememoration to her father King David Norton with the quinces from Auditor Robert King.
Norton was the speaker at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture sponsored by the KU office of minority affairs. She spoke in the Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas
Since King's death, "Those of us concerned with equality have been forced to shift gears," she said.
Opponents of affirmative action have gradually assumed the offensive on the issue, she said.
NORTON SAID OPONENTS had portrayed affirmative action as a legal device to award jobs to unfit workers instead of as a legal remedy for victims of job discrimin
Critics of affirmative action, Norton said, overemphasize the quotas associated with it.
As a result, the public is affirmative action quotas are lifted once an employer corrects an exclusionary personnel system, she said.
Norton said affirmative action had increased the pool of potential workers, freed personnel systems of white male bliss and racial segregation gap between white and black employees.
"None of the critics of affirmative action come close to suggesting a viable allure."
Kansas Union yesterday that affirmative action programs had made progress toward Dr. King's dream but that much more work remains.
NORTON, WHO IS the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said blacks and whites, especially white ethnic groups, differed on how progress in jobs and education could best be achieved.
She said some whites thought progress must be achieved personally, whereas blacks
Norton said work was the best remedy for social inequality. From the Civil War to the Depression, a "sea of jobs, and a shortage of unskilled workers" existed, she said, but
looked to government for help in correcting social inequities.
employers chose to import foreign workers rather than hire native blacks.
As a result, the United States missed a great opportunity to further equality and speed up social progress for blacks, Norton said.
Reagan calls for renewal across land
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan's second inaugural address repeated the theme of American renewal from his presidency. He called for the accomplishments of his administration
Then he had blustered against a bleated bureaucracy and, in the wake of the American hostages in Iran, said he would project U.S. power in world affairs.
But this time around, Reagan sought a place in the history books — not with ringing rhetoric but with the accomplishments of his administration.
"Four years ago, I spoke to you of a new beginning and we have accomplished that," he said. "Tax rates have been reduced, inflation cut dramatically, and more people are employed today than ever in our history."
THEN, LOOKING ahead, he said, "Let history say of us, these the golden years — when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, when America reached her best. In life, there is always a better tomorrow."
He urged Americans to "stand as one people under God determined that we will succeed."
"So much is changing and will change but so much endures and transcends time."
There was little of the inspired oratory that has marked other second-term inaugurals, such as Lincoln's "with malice toward none" or Franklin Rosevelt's "one-third of a nation ill-housed . . . ill-clothed . . . ill-fed."
INSTEAD, REAGAN echoed his own campaign speeches in substance and John F. Kennedy in style, turning sentences against themselves for dramatic effect; the principles have never failed us. But, for a time, we failed those principals."
The imagery of Reagan's 1981 speech was one of dreaming "heroic dreams" with a pledge to "begin an era of national renewal."
He repeated his determination to make
them "renewal" in a polish poised for greatness.
FOUR YEARS AGO, the new president took a tough stance toward domestic critics and foreign adversaries, foreshadowing his drastic domestic spending cuts by saying, "We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow."
He warned the Soviets and others,
'When action is required to preserve our nation's security, we must stop.'
This time, Reagan addressed two specific issues — a promise to freeze the fiscal 1966 budget at current levels and a defense of his much-maligned program to develop space weapons to knock down incoming Soviet missiles.
In 1981, Reagan said he would "curb the size and influence of the federal establishment." Yesterday, he boasted, "We have already started returning to the people and to state and local governments responsibilities better handled by them."
See REAGAN, p. 5, col. 3
Boy's shooting spree kills school principal
Bv United Press International
GODDARD — A 14-year-old boy who friends said had a penchant for violence and weapons walked into his junior high school with a high-powered rifle yesterday and opened fire, killing the principal and wounding three others, authorities said.
Authorities told the boy, armed with an M-1A semi-automatic military rifle and a .357-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, immediately put down his weapons and surrendered when the officer approached him.
The young suspect, described as a looner who often checked out library books dealing with weapons, fled the south-central Kansas school after the shootout. About 90 minutes later, a Wichita police officer who spotted the boy in a field carrying a rifle apprehended him without resistance.
The youth also had several rounds of ammunition, including three gun clips with 30 rounds each, they said. Authorities rushed the weapons came from the boy's home.
THE SUSPECT, identified as a freshman at the junior high school, was taken to a youth detention center in nearby Wichita for the filing of charges today or tomorrow.
Authorities declined to comment on a
motive, but friends and acquaintances of the suspect said he often talked about violence and weapons. The boy's father, an ex-Marine, is a gun enthusiast who often repairs firearms and makes his own rifle. He also shoots the son and father hunted, they said.
Goddard Police Chief Jim Nelson said the suspect walked into the main entrance of the school about 11 a.m. and went to the office, where he was asked by principal Jim McGee, 45, why he was carrying a rifle.
NELSON SAID THE suspect responded by opening fire, hitting McGee in the chest and a teacher, Dawn Swearingen, 32, in the head. The boy then fled down a street where Mr. Swearingen teacher and a 14-year-old student were hit, as were several walls and lockers.
McGee was arrilled to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, where he died about 1:30 p.m. after surgery. Swearingen was listed in good condition at another Wichita clinic.
"They tell me he really let go of some lead down there," said Wichita Police Lt. Brandon
Donald Harris, 39, a driver's education teacher and wrestling coach, was in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the leg. The wounded student, Daniel Williams, was listed in good condition with a gunshot wound to the pelvic area.
Spring enrollment up from last year
By BETH REITER Staff Reporter
Forty-nine more students are enrolled at the University of Kansas this semester than were enrolled one year ago, according to a report issued yesterday by Gil Dyck, dean of educational services.
"I was pleased that the first-day enrollment was comparable to the enrollment last spring." Dyck said. "This is probably due to our small increase in the fall."
The first-day figures include enrollment as of the first day of classes. Late enrollments and off camp enrollments other than those required to attend a Park have not been reported yet. Dyck said.
KU also offers classes in Topeka, Wichita and Leavenworth
the headcount for the Lawrence campus was 20,520,49 more than the spring 1984 total of 20,471. On-campus enrollment fell by 23,016 in fall 1985 and 1986; the Center increased by 72. from 1,037 to 1,109.
THE ENROLLMENT for the University
this semester for Lawrence, the Regents Center and the College of Health Sciences in Kansas City, Kan., is 22,696, three more than a year ago.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig said in a prepared statement, "I was somewhat surprised and quite pleased with the second semester increase in enrollment. It is my belief that our major universities are expecting significant declines in second semester enrollment."
See ENROLL, p. 5, col. 1
Bitter cold holds Eastern U.S. in its grip
By United Press International
Lethal cold swept through the Deep South yesterday, with the coldest temperatures seen in this century wrecking the citrus crop and forcing officials to close schools and businesses and open shelters for the homeless.
The record cold, which moved through the Midwest over the weekend, has been blamed for at least 55 deaths since Saturday, and the storm had no effect on those who would rise as the deathly chill continues.
The 4 below temperatures in Washington — the coldest in inaugural history — forced President Reagan to cancel the traditional parade and move yesterday's ceremony indoors. It was the first indoor ceremony since 1829.
International Falls, Minn. — traditionally
the nation's cold spot — was almost 40 degrees warmer than Beckley, W.Va., while New Orleans was 5 degrees colder than Fairbanks. Alaska.
record cold, relentless winds and fierce blowing snow — more than 2 feet in Buffalo — gripped much of New York State yesterday and closed highways and airports.
Jacksonville. Fla. dipped to an all-time low of 7 degrees, breaking the old mark set in
UTILITY OFFICIALS from Texas to New England reported record use of gas and electricity as residents tried to beat the chill, and customers also conserve their electricity and dangerous blackouts.
THE COLD IN Florida turned immature oranges into hard balls of yellow and green ice yesterday. A minister called a meeting of farm families to pray for divine intervention to halt another night of 28-degree temperatures — lethal to the growing fruit.
1899. About 44,000 people were without power in Tampa and Pensacola because increased power consumption overwhelmed transformers.
THE COLD SWEPT the South, breaking all-time records and closing hundreds of schools from Tennessee and Virginia to Texas.
"We're easily the coldest we've ever been in recorded, weather history," said National Weather Service forecafter Mike Sabones in Raleigh, N.C. "Just about every city had all-time record lows, and most of these weather records start in the 1870s."
The overwhelming demand for electricity to keep heaters going in the stunned South caused a systemwide blackout to 30,000 hornes throughout southeast Texas and a dust storm in another. An another 8000 women without electricity in Alabama, Kentucky and South Carolina.