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University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 30, 1992
OPINION
Student-housing staff gets shoddy treatment
I am writing in response to "New Policy Displauses Hall Workers," by Greg Farmer, published on Friday, April 17.
The Student Housing Department's policy is that off-campus students will not be given equal preference in hiring for desk assistants and security monitors in the residence halls beginning next semester. The Kansan quoted Jonathan Long, assistant director for student housing, as saying, "Money was not what drove this decision."
That is a big fib. Admit it—there are not as many students living in the halls as there were to be, and you are hurting for the cash. To say this new policy will be an incentive for students to move into the halls is weak. Jobs are not that sparse in Lawrence. Employment opportunities in the residence halls certainly would not be the deciding factor for a student choosing between living in a hall or an off-campus residence.
Money was not what drove this decision?
Corryn
Flahaven
Guest
columnist
You know there has been a decline in residence hall interest through the years. The cost of living in a residence hall rises annually. The monthly cost of living in a residence hall is much larger than the monthly cost in most greek houses. In addition, living off campus is much more cost efficient. When I can pay $130 to $330 a month in a two-bedroom apartment, including
food and utilities, why should I pay $360 a month, next year's rate for double occupancy in a residence hall? What other efforts have been made to increase the number of students living in the housing system?
If your main concern is recruitment and retention of the residents, think of the students' concerns instead. Residence halls have other wonderful benefits you never mention. There is security 24 hours a day, no need to cook and the washing machines are right downstairs. I could easily continue. Job opportunities in the residence halls are not the major incentive to increase residency because they will only affect 15 to 25 residents in each hall.
But what really angers me is how the current desk assistants and hall monitors have been practically booted into the street.
To say that you were giving current employees the opportunity to consider moving back onto campus is a flimsy excuse. If the housing department would have given this plan some careful thought, there could have been a
better way to implement the plan. How about making next year the first year off-campus students would be denied job offers? This way, the current off-campus workers would slowly fade away and graduate. It would also enable the residence halls to retain a majority of their well-trained, experienced staff members. Additionally, it would be a way of appealing your current workers instead of leaving them out in the cold.
I understand there are reasons for implementing this policy now. But your lack of financing for housing, that is, a declining occupancy rate, is the key factor, and this must be openly admitted.
In the future, if there happens to be any increase in residence-hall occupancy, it certainly will not be a result of this new policy. The trust desk assistants and security monitors who make your halls reputable and pleasing place to live are obviously not a concern to you, and that is sad. Taylor McCammon's statement that the housing department's new policy, "is discrimination in the moral and ethical sense" is quite true. Your manner of enforcing this policy is truly discriminatory against your soon-to-be unemployed security monitors and desk assistants.
Burryn Flahaven is a Schaumburg, Ill., pre-journalism major.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
New Senate, same old tricks
Student Senate abides by its standard practice of ramming through officer appointments
Congratulations to Student Senate. Inits every first meeting of the term, Senate was able to railroad through the appointments of officers. These positions include: the head of the Student Executive Committee, the Executive Secretary, Associated Students of Kansas administrators, Community Service chairpersons, Treasurer, and the Administrative Assistant. These positions carry substantial annual salaries, and with the importance tied to these positions, Student Senate should have followed the advice of many of its members and waited to carefully evaluate the qualifications of all the applicants.
All applicants are interviewed by the student body president and vice president. The president selects individuals, and nominations are offered to the full Senate for confirmation. Unfortunately, many senators are under the impression that Senate should
serve as a rubber stamp instead of carefully examine what qualifies an individual. This is wrong and perpetuates Senate's business-as usual, good-old-boy images.
Kristin Lange, appointed as Student Executive Committee chairperson, claims that it is not Senate's concern to identify the most qualified nominees. If it is not Senate's concern, then whose concern is it? The president and vice president certainly are not concerned with qualifications, they are concerned with political paybacks. Those plush jobs are easy to hand out to friends. And without using the appropriate checks and balance system, abuse can and will happen.
Questions and concerns aren't limited to StudEx. Many senators had reasonable questions, but they weren't given the opportunity to ask those questions. A few people thought it more important to approve those positions without close scrutiny of qualifications. Those who deserve jobs the least seem most intent on finding ways to exploit the system. Unfortunately, business as usual seems to have reared its ugly head in this new Senate.
Protest law is a sad necessity
Stephen Martino for the editorial board
Hateful attitudes such as those displayed at student's funeral show need for protective rule
This week it became illegal to picket funerals in Kansas. Although the constitutionality of the law remains questionable, unfortunately, the law is necessary in Kansas, thanks to Fred Phelps.
Phelps is a Topeka-based minister who has proclaimed it the "biblical duty" as a preacher to tell the world that homosexuality is evil and protest at the funerals of people who died of AIDS-related illnesses.
The most recent protest by Phelps and several of his followers was at the funeral of Ken Scott, a KU student who was buried in Topeka last week. Unique to Scott's situation was the fact that he requested that protesters be invited to his funeral.
Phelps and his ministry are usually an uninvited presence at funerals. Phelps has said that "dying time is truth time," and he and his ministry share this "truth" by reading Bible verses and holding signs that say things such as "God Hates Fags."
The First Amendment guarantees everyone the right to freedom of speech, and every measure should be taken to ensure that this law is constitutionally sound.
But freedom of speech is not an absolute right, and the Supreme Court has allowed limits to be placed on that freedom when necessary. The new Kansas law seems to be such a case.
The law does not prohibit Phelps' type of protest in general but rather prohibits such protests before, during and after a funeral at a mortuary, funeral home or church. Breaking this law would be classified as a class B misdemeanor, which is punishable by jail terms or fines.
Family and friends attending a funeral should not have to be subjected to the selfrighteous, sanctimonious, hateful harassment of others. They are there to mourn and remember the one they have lost. This loss should not be compounded with being forced to cope with the ignorance and homophobia of protesters.
Until we reach the Utopia where ignorance and hatefulness like Phelps' are absent, laws such as this one will remain necessary.
Julie Wasson for the editorial board
Mad at AIDS protests
I don't know what religion this minister claims to be a part of, but if in fact a God does exist, I find it impossible to believe that this God would in any way condone hatred of people or acts of outright meanness and discrimination.
I can'r remember a time when I felt more rageed and saddened than after I read the article in the *Kansan* about the protest of the KU student's spring April 123.
The death of an AIDS victim is heartbreak-
ing enough without such vicious and insen-
sible people adding to the misery. I cannot
understand how anyone can call himself a mister when he preaches such hatred and cruelty.
Is Fred Phelps merely flaunting his ignorance by implying that AIDS is only a gay disease, or does he simply find it necessary to inflict his inhumane and ridiculous beliefs on
Furthermore, does this minister, who calls himself anti-AIDS, intend to protest the funerals of all AIDS victims? We all know that AIDS can affect anyone.
all AIDS victims?
■ Carolyn Hoffman
Saratoga, Calif., graduate student
Our mission is to love
Let it be known that the Fred Phelps ministry is in no way representative of true Christianity. It is because of misguided individuals such as these that there is a growing misunderstanding and even hatred against Christians in our society.
I am a devoted disciple of Christ, and while I do believe what the Bible says about human sexuality, it is not my place or anyone else's to judge or condemn them, alive or dead, or add insult to injury after they have passed on.
On behalf of the one true Church, those who follow Jesus sincerely, I apologize for the actions of hateful people who hinder our work and give us and the Lord a bad name.
I grieve for Ken Scott and pray for his family and friends
Our true mission is to love, teach and help people whenever we can.
Lettersto the editor
a brother and a friend:
I'm sorry — God bless yo
Lawrence resident
To all those who knew and loved Ken Scott as
Penalty is too extreme
In his column about the death penalty, David Mitchell rationalizes that no amount of counseling can bring back the victims of people such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, so we should just execute them—and fast. However, he neglects the fact that we could execute 10,000 people the world over, and those victims would still never come back. What can possibly be gained by state extinction of prisoners? What solace for the families or anyone can possibly be found? And his argument that the appeals process is "ridiculously long and drawn out" gives no regard to due process of law.
A convicted person has every right to appeal his or her case to the fullest extent, whatever the crime, murder included. The point is that the government, like everyone else, has no right to take away one of the most basic of
human rights — the right to life. The death penalty is certainly the most inappropriate way to handle the problem of violent crime.
■ Kerry Anderson
Topeka senior
Kansan was unfair
I was dismayed at the way in which the University Daily Kansan recently handled reporting of sexual harassment. I am not arguing for either side of this sensitive issue. I am merely concerned with irresponsible journalism.
The Kansan and many students have a legitimate objection to the administration's handling of law students. I take nothing away from those charges. It was shoddy journalism, however, for the Kansan to air one side of this issue on the front page in a matter-of-fact format. The Kansan was certainly aware that the law school and KU administration could not respond because of a policy respecting the confidentiality of complainants. Rarely would a complaint be filed if it were open to public comment by administration officials. I think it is
wrong for the Kansan to allow the alleged victim to throw punches at the administration in the press, where the administration cannot fight back. When the Kansan gives the University a black eye, we all suffer.
I am not defending professor Tonkovich. Any professor attempting to use a position of authority to compel sexual favors should be dismissed. We do not know that happened here; there is only one side of the story. I am not defending the administration. The grievance procedures have been snail-like and need reform. That reform seems to be under way.
The Kansan has been reporting the progress of these grievance procedures in order to prompt action from the administration. That is responsible journalism. Printing a personal account of alleged sexual harassment, obviously meant to sway public opinion against a party to the issue, is an editorial. Putting editorials on the front page is trashy tabloidism.
The Kansan should not conduct a trial and convict professor Tonkovich in the press before the resolution of the issue.
Doug Deadly
First-year law student
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Loco Locals
by Tom Michaud
HOMEREMODEL
LOCO LOCALS®
1990 ~ 1992
THANKS FOR NOT
RUNNING ME OFF
THE PAGE! IT'S
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