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FEATURES: Area clubs and disc jockeys are staging an effort to revive the Lawrence dance scene. Page 6.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
VOL.103,NO.95
KANSAS STATE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
TOPEKA KS 66612
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1994
(USPS 650-640)
Senate tables bill for Day on the Hill
SUA had requested $5,000 for the event
NEWS:864-4810
By Heather Moore Kansan staff writer
Student Union Activities' signature event of the year, Day on the Hill, may have to be downscaled if sponsors aren't found.
Last night, Student Senate voted 22 to 20 not to hear a bill requesting $5,000 to fund the event. The bill still could be put on the agenda in the future if Senate chooses to hear it.
When Paul Wolters, engineering senator, moved to hear the bill, Eric Medill,
Student Senate Finance Committee chair
objected. Medill said he objected because
the bill had gone through the committee
system and had failed by a legitimate vote.
SUA had presented the bill to the finance committee on Jan. 26 to pay for the stage and security, but it was voted down.
Senators said during the meeting that because Senate's budget was tight, they could not justify spending $5,000 for entertainment purposes.
Jeremy Haas, Senate treasurer, said Senate had given SUA $16,235 last year.
"Senate has given them money for good things, like concerts and movies, but we need to limit the amount we spend on entertainment," he said.
At the time of the vote, Senate had a total of $3,716 in its unallocated account. On Jan. 26, Senate had $9,460.
Shannon Morford, vice chair of the finance committee, said that she supported the bill.
"Not many students know what we do even though we support good programs," she said. "Our name gets out, and that's a good thing. Day on the Hill is a good program."
"Music is something that students have in common," he said. "The SUA has a wide selection of music that will appeal to all tastes. It has the highest student turnout of any other event."
Ken Martin, Association of University Residence Halls senator, said that this bill would affect a majority of students.
Desey Tziortzis, live music coordinator, said that SUA was looking for sponsors for the event.
"We will talk to other campus organizations to sponsor Day on the Hill," she said. "It's too early to tell who will sponsor the event."
Tziortzis said that the production could be downsized if there weren't enough sponsors.
"Theoretically, SUA only has a certain amount it can spend," she said. "If we downsize, it wouldn't be as large of a production. The level of talent won't be as high, which would mean less people and less security."
Tziortzis said that bands hadn't been chosen for the event.
Consensual relations conflicts discussed
SenEx head says next step for policy is implementation
T. P. Srinivasan, head of the University Senate Executive Committee, and Ed Meyen, executive vice chancellor, discuss the importance of the new consensual relations policy. The two spoke at the SenEx meeting yesterday afternoon.
By Jamie Munn
Kansan staff writer
KU's new consensual relations policy and its evolution brought an awareness of the problem to the campus, said Ed Meven, executive vice chancellor.
Speaking to the University Senate Executive Committee yesterday, Meyen said the policy was the type of policy that popped up every decade or so and broke new ground.
The policy waspassed at last week's University Council meeting, where the vote sparked nearly an hour and a half of debate. The meeting escalated to a heated discussion between Emil Tonkovich, former professor of law, and Robert Friauf, head of Council.
But Meyen said the debates and discussions before the approval vote had been essential to the process.
"It's one that we think reflects sensitivity for privacy in concern to the faculty, is fair to the students and is in the best interest of the institution."
"We're not saying for a moment that the policy we have is one that will be with us for many years," Meyen said. "But it's one that was necessary."
Meyen said he was pleased with the amount of time and consideration given to the issue because he had heard many concerns, especially from students, about the policy.
He has not seen any issue draw so much articulate criticism in the time he has been
at the University. Meyen said.
He also said the University had an obligation as a public institution to set an example for similar policies at other universities.
T. P. Srinivasan, head of SenEx, said the University must now concentrate on enforcing the new policy.
"What counts is how you're going to
operate, how you're going to implement it," he said.
Srinivasan said educating and sensitizing the campus to the new policy was a concern in making the policy work.
After Meyen's speech, SenEx members addressed the heated debate at last week's Council meeting. Tonkovich had been allowed to speak a majority of
the Council passed a motion in his favor.
"Actually, with Tonkovich, there was absolutely no reason for him to speak." said Wl Linkugel, member of SenEx. "He was not invited there. He showed up."
Linkukel and Srinivasan both told SenEx that Tonkovich should not have been allowed to speak because he was no longer a member of the faculty.
Uneasy feelings delay passage of death penalty
By Stephen Martino Kansan staff writer
Death penalty opponents may have given capital-punishment legislation a stay from enactment in the Kansas Legislature. But the wheels already are turning to get the bill to the floor of the House soon.
On Jan. 27, the House Federal and State Affairs Committee voted 14 to nine to table a bill that would return the death penalty to Kansas for the first time since 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all death penalty laws in the nation.
State Rep. Robert Krehbiel, D-Pretree Prairie and ranking minority member of the committee, said that too many committee members had trouble with some provisions of the legislation.
In particular, committee members were uneasy about legalizing the execution of 16- and 17-year-olds and supporting the felony-murder provision, he said. This provision would make it possible for prosecutors to seek the death penalty for people involved in a crime that resulted in someone's death, even if that person did not actually kill the person.
However, State Rep. Clyde Graeber, R-Leavenworth and head of the committee, said that numerous attempts had been made to modify the bill in the committee but that they all had failed.
Graeber said amendments to remove the felony-murder provision and to increase the execution age to 18 had been presented but not supported by the same people who had wanted the bill drawn more narrowly.
"These people did not want to make the bill more restrictive in hopes that if it is voted on by the House, enough people won't be able to support it," he said.
Krehbiel said the delay, coupled with testimony from supporters and opponents, might cause some people to reconsider their positions.
"It was very powerful testimony, and you can't listen to those kind of stories and not be impacted by it," he said.
Through two days of hearings before the vote, witnesses — many of whom had experienced crime first-hand — testified to the possible merits of capital punishment. But they also spoke of the possible unfairness in sentencing based on race and on evidence that capital punishment did not serve as a deterrent to crime.
"A great weight of the testimony says the death penalty will increase crime in Kansas, and it is three times as expensive to kill someone as keep them in prison," said Krebiel, an opponent of the legislation. "Why would you vote for that?"
the bill's author, State Rep. Greg Packer, R-Topeka, said that although he was disappointed with the delay, he was confident the Legislature would address the death penalty this session.
"We will vote on the death penalty on the floor of the House some time, some way," Packer said. "I believe in our legislative system, but some legislators have lost sight of what people in our districts want."
More to come...
Kansan staff report
KU students should not plan to trade their parkas and earmuffs for shades and shorts just yet.
Phil, the Punxsutawney, Pa,
groundhog, came out of hibernation yesterday just long enough to
Popular belief has it that because Phil saw his shadow on Groundhog Day, people across the country will have to suffer through six more weeks of winter.
greet the sunrise — and see his shadow.
Fighting Racism
Lisa Blair heads the Lawrence Alliance, an anti-racism group, and involves herself in both civic and campus causes.
Page 3.
Valerie Bontrager / KANSAN
Lobbyist calls for a democratic Africa
By Cheryl Cadue Kansan staff writer
Deborah Green, a lobbyist for democracy in Africa, said yesterday that the United States and the nation of Zaire had something in common: Both were undemocratic.
Deborah Green, a lobbyist for democracy in Africa, speaks on building U.S. support for democracy in Africa Green gave the speech yesterday at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
"Our county is profoundly undemocratic." Green said to an audience at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. "Moreover, our country promotes undemocratic regimes around the world. The world would be a better place all around if we could somehow make our country, the United States, more democratic."
Green, who is part of a national speaking tour for Black History Month, spoke on the crisis in the democratization process in Zaire and on the need for U.S. citizens to lobby for a pro-democratic foreign policy.
Zaire has been governed by a dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko since 1965, Green said. Mobutu who established his power through a military coup, said in 1990 that he would allow the country to have a multiparty system. However, he abandoned that promise when opposition leaders voted Etienne Tshisekedi into the position of prime minister. Tshisekedi was to head the transitional government for two years until free democratic elections could be held.
Green said that the presence of an African constituency in the United States would force the administration to support democratic Third World nations. But she said the current system of foreign policy would have to change if Zaire's situation was to improve.
"President Clinton, who took office promising that his administration would support the efforts of African Democrats, did nothing to support the democratic transitional government," she said. "It
was a win for African dictatorship and a defeat for African democracy aided and abetted by our own U.S. foreign policy."
Green, who began her political career lobbying for the rights of independent presidential candidates, said that the only way to change U.S. foreign policy was to change the nation's entire political scene.
"When 20 million Americans voted for Ross Perot and other independent candidates in 1992, I believe they were helping the cause of African democracy," she said. "Those voters made a concrete decision to reject the two major parties. This voter revolt is important because it destabilized the bipartisan social establishment that makes foreign policy and which so tightly controls the political process in Africa."
Upcoming events
Today
Forum: "The Black Church Today." 7 p.m., Alderson Auditorium, Kansas Union.
**Dialogue:** "Multiculturalism and Diversity: Bridging the Differences." Tapes 2, 5. Jayhawk Room, Kansas
Film: "Menace II Society," 7 p.m., Kansas Union $2.50 with KUID.
Music: "Jazz in the Key of 'A'" 7 p.m., Frontier Room.
Burpee Union.
**Film:** "Poetic Justice." 7 p.m., Kansas Union. $2.50 with KUID.
KANSAN