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Thursday, March 4. 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
Student Senate always takes the easy way out
Last Wednesday Student Senate passed a bill to increase student activity fees by $3 a semester. This fee increase is unnecessary. Unfortunately, Senate is like most governing bodies - its primary goal is to avoid criticism.
Faced with the increasing cost of the Saferide program, Senate went searching for places to cut the revenue code budget. Senate's first idea was to cut back on the operation of Saferide. This met strong resistance. Next, the finance committee proposed that one full-time position be cut from Legal Services for Students. Again there was an outcry, and Senate quickly tried to find funding for Legal Services.
Senate then tried to cut KU Forensics, but members of the Forensics team were present and objected. Senate then turned its attention to the Concert Series. Senate slashed its funding and gave the money to Legal Services to mollify them.
Senate realized that every group that had its funding cut was going to complain in one manner or another. Thus, Senate decided that the best solution would be to increase fees. Senators were frustrated with attempts to be fiscally responsible and thought that if they had more money they could simply spend enough to keep everyone happy. Sadly, Senate will never have enough money to satisfy every group.
Although this fee increase seemed relatively small, some senators believed the students should be allowed to vote on it in the form of a referendum. This idea was voted down easily. Opponents argued that students do not have the right to raise their own fees. They said only Senate had that right. This can be translated as: "Most students do not want a fee increase, and we probably could not convince them to vote for it, so let's just pass it now and hope that no one really notices."
Senate talks a lot about having more student involvement. But when it comes down to it, Senate would rather go about its business without being bothered by students.
Another example of this could be seen in the controversy that surrounded the attempt by students to implement the check-off plan for student activity fees last year. Student Senate formed a committee to study the feasibility of the check-off plan. This has quieted debate on the issue.
The remarkable thing about the committee is that it has never met. Student Senate's official position is that the issue is being studied, but at this rate, it will be studied forever and nothing will ever be done.
The current system of funding groups is a sad process. Any non-partisan group that forms on campus is guaranteed at least minimal funding. Community and county services also receive funds taken out of activity fees. In general, the more money a group asks for, the more it gets.
The finance committee is made up of an appointed group of students and a few senators. Attendance at meetings varies widely, and a group's funding can be determined largely by the mood of the committee They must determine among themselves how they feel money should be given. The problems are compounded by the fact that there is little contact between the committee and Senate. Senate often disregards the finance committee completely.
Senate is too much in the habit of taking the easy way out when it comes to making choices. Senators have increased student fees without first seeking out all the areas within the budget that should be cut. Senate should come up with a philosophy of funding and a system that works before it asks for more money from the students. Finally, Senate should truly give students a voice in how much of their money is taken and where it is spent. Students are tired of the same old rhetoric.
DAVID OLSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Column, reader's letter were full of inaccurate statements
It is not my usual practice to respond to letters on the editorial page, but someone must acknowledge and amend the unprinted print in Patricia McGowan's letter responding to Ann Jurczyk's column on anti-abortion feminists.
Yes, President Clinton lifted the ban on fetal tissue research, but no, this tissue is not extracted from living children. A fetus, according to Webster's, is an unhatched or unborn developing after three months gestation.
After the fetus is born and able to survive outside the womb it is called a baby. When an unviable fetus is aborted, it cannot live outside the womb.
The tissue of the fetus is not the fetus' brain tissue but the fetal tissue implanted into the brain of Parkinson's patients.
The third world countries McGowan referred to are so poverty-stricken that they have a practice of killing female children, selling them into prostitution or sending them out on the streets to be.
We do not live in Nazi Germany. Scientists are not extracting fetal tissue from living children. This is obviously anti-abortion rhetoric, and I do not know who can, with a good conscience, manipulate people with such blatant lies.
STAFF COLUMNIST
If, as McGowan suggests, President Clinton is stopped, we may as well return to a time when women were reduced to obtaining abortions through illegal channels. During this time, many women bled to death, and many were accidentally sterilized. Legally or illegally, women have always found ways to abort unwanted pregnancies.
The idea that something will not happen if you make it illegal is simply myopic.
As for Jurcyk's column, she managed in just under 700 words to completely misdirect, misquote and missassess an entire generation of feminists.
Jurcyk's suggestion that President Clinton is a feminist is nothing short of ludicrous. And Limbaugh's allegation that feminists want to see more abortions performed is also outra-
geous.
Clinton is the first president in my lifetime who has courageously moved to pass laws that will protect women's safety and independence. Safe abortion procedures and better birth control education protect the women who choose to be sexually active but who do not wish to have a child or die because their birth control methods did not work.
I find it appalling that so many anti-abortionists argue that women casually seek abortions as a birth control method. I wonder when I hear this how many women they actually know who have had to make this tough choice? I have known several.
There is no harder decision. It is traumatic and painful. Why do I want it to remain legal?
First, it is the woman's body; it should be her choice. Second, every child born into this world should be met with love, food and safety. Third, even if it were illegal, as long as there are unwanted pregnancies, there will be abortions, and women will be in danger.
No. I do not want more abortions performed. What I want are fewer unplanned pregnancies. This could simply be accomplished, as it has been in European countries, by educating our children.
Sex, in this country, is such a dirty word that the educational system shrinks from taking any bold steps to educate young people about its dangers, pitfalls and joys.
Yes, joys. In the midst of all of this debate about condoms, abortions, HIV, HPV, Herpes, gonorrhea, etc. we have forgotten why people engage in sex in the first place, and why, no matter what we say or do, people always will.
Sex can be a healthy, joyous expression, and children discover this whether we want them to or not. We are, as a nation, suffering from a backlash of sexual repression, and the people who suffer are our children. Afraid to admit their interest in and desire for sex, they are again having to find illicit enjoyment. The punishment for which can be an unwanted pregnancy or, at worst, death.
For simply $1 at 7 p.m. tomorrow in the Kansas Union Ballroom, students can hear Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood, speak in the Kansas Union Ballroom. She is an outspoken advocate of sex education and a pioneer in abortion rights. And yes, Limbaugh has labeled her a feminazi. She ought to be good.
Lisa Cosmillo is a Lawrence graduate student majoring in journalism.
kansan photos misrepresented event
Newspapers have a responsibility to proclaim the news in a way that portrays it honestly.
At the Kansan, we take this responsibility very seriously.
But in regard to two photos used to illustrate the 16th annual Big Eight Conference on Black Student Government, our coverage was irresponsible.
On Page 3 of the Feb. 22 issue of the Kansan, we printed a story and two photos that were intended to summarize the events of the three-day conference.
KANSAN EDITOR
To summarize a three-day conference in one story and two photos is nearly impossible, but sometimes space limitations force newspapers into tough situations. This fact is never a good excuse for representing an event inaccurately.
The conference brought about 750 university and high school students to the University of Kansas. The conference was scheduled to include about 45 hours of activities.
During most of that time, the students either participated in workshops that focused on issues affecting African Americans or listened to speakers such as Sonia Sanchez, poet and professor at Temple University.
and Leonard Jeffries, professor of Black studies at the City College of New York.
But the photos used by the Kansan to illustrate the event were not of the workshops or the speakers.
The photos we used were of the Greek step show and gospel extravaganza, events that lasted a total of four hours. These events were the evening entertainment for conference participants.
By including photos that represented only four hours of a three-day event, we misrepresented the conference.
But even worse, we perpetuated a stereotype.
The photos were of African Americans dancing and singing. On the sports page that same day, five African-American athletes were pic-
tured. Those were the only photos of African Americans in that issue.
Dancing, singing and slam dunking. These are too often the only images of African Americans that newspapers provide to their readers.
1 or someone else in our newsroom should have realized before the photos were printed that we were perpetual witnesses to a stereotype of African Americans.
I am sure many of our readers looked at the photos and did not perceive a problem. My goal for this column is to help our readers understand what we did and why we were wrong for doing it.
At the Kansan, we have learned from our mistake. We hope others will learn from it, too.
Kansan Editor Greg Farmer is an Oatle
senior majoring in Journalism.
KANSAN STAFF
GREG FARMER
Editor
GAYLE OSTERBERG
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
STEVE PERRY
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Asat Managing
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David Mitchell
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Bella Parry
Dave Halpern
David Halpern
1906 FM
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