OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
March 26,1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kaman (USP$ 60-640) is published at the University of Kaman, 118 Stauffer Pint Hall, Lawrence, Kana, 60043, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding weekdays and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kana, 60044. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $27 for a full year. Student subscriptions are a $13 semester fee through the student activity fee. PMASTER: Send address changes to
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY Campus Editor News Editor
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CORT GORMAN JILL MTICHELL
CERT Sales Manager National Sales Manager
PAUL JESS
General Manager and News Adviser
JANCE PHILIPS    DUNCAN CALIHUO
Campus Sales Manager   Classified Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Separate Senates
The Black Student Union did more last week than simply request $19,343 in Student Senate supplemental funds.
It requested that there be two student senates at the University of Kansas — one for black students and one for all others.
Of course that's not how BSU leaders put it in a budget-request letter sent to the Senate's Finance and Auditing Committee.
BSU contends that it should receive all the money in student activity fees paid by black students because, "In the past, black students have watched thousands of their dollars be allocated to organizations in which they do not participate by choice or exclusion."
So what's new? All students have watched their dollars be allocated to student groups in which they do not participate. Besides, no student can possibly choose to participate in or be served by all 71 student organizations financed by the Senate.
The request is ridiculous, outrageous and unworthy of consideration. Even student body president Carla Vogel, who has on more than one occasion shown her compassion in listening to all sides
of a dispute, says she has "mixed feelings" about it.
What surprises us is that this request could possibly come from an organization that supposedly represents the interests of black students.
Perhaps BSU leaders have forgotten the timeless verdict handed down by the Supreme Court in the 1954 case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. That decision, of course, became the catalyst for school integration because it declared that separate schools could not be considered equal.
The decision was a victory for blacks and whites alike.
Now, 30 years later, black student leaders of the University of Kansas have taken it upon themselves to return to the days when separate was considered equal — when black students studied in schools that, by white standards, were poorly financed and shabbily maintained.
Here's some news for all those who, through this request, support the creation of a black student senate:
This is 1984, not 1954.
Even today, separate rarely is equal.
Loss of veteran senator
Loren Busby, a long-term Senate leader, recently resigned because he thought he no longer had the support that would make him effective.
Recent Student Senate resignations will give students a chance to see more clearly whether they got what they voted for.
Busby's platform in the campaign reflected less drastic changes than did that of the Costume Party.
The election showed that students wanted a radical change — not simply a minor alteration — in the way Senate has been run in recent years.
And once Carla Vogel and Dennis "Boog" Highberger were in office, Busby, who recognized the differences in philosophy, chose to vacate his Senate seat.
Now he will share in neither any victories the Senate and the new administration realizes nor any blame they receive.
Some other Senate officials may
have resigned only after the Black Student Union requested that they do so.
And it is unfortunate that "lack of communication" was cited by the former Senate treasurer, Mark Bossi, as his reason for resigning from an administration that, in the campaign, had counted this among their main concerns.
It is unfortunate that a few sometimes dissenting voices are gone — surely the Costume Party recognizes the value of differing opinions.
But the team of Vogel and Highberger, alone, could not accomplish the goals they have set for the Senate. Perhaps with new players, they can make it a whole new ball game.
Then when the score is in, students will be able to decide whether the changes they voted for were good or whether it would have been more prudent to play by the old rules.
Court takes new path
The California Supreme Court has now taken courts and the law where more cautious, and we believe wiser, courts have feared to tread. It has entered the bedroom.
It also amends the concept that mature individuals bear personal responsibility for their conduct and for the results of that conduct.
This is an extraordinary expansion of the concept of legal liability.
San Francisco Chronicle
It did this by deciding that promises made in dalliance may bring on a damage suit if the result involved transmission of a disease, in this instance, herpes.
This includes responsibility for risks freely accepted.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his or her name or faculty or staff position. The Kansan also lettles individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauster-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
The exact number of mobile homes in the area that have not been tied down by means of auger and cable is unknown. State, county and city officials have no present statistics on mobile homes in the area and they do not inspect the mobile homes for proper anchoring devices.
The deaths would be painful Death from flying debris is hardly serene.
But by failing to enforce state statutes requiring that mobile homes be anchored, state and local officials must enforce the residents to such violent deaths.
Mobile home statutes ignored
LETTERS POLICY
And as the gales and tornadoes of spring rapidly approach, the chances increase of some mobile in Lawrence tipping and killing.
However, some mobile home park managers admit that some of their rental trailers, as well as some occupied trailers, are not unprotected.
The county could have as many as 20 or 30 unanchored trailers. But even if one or two trailers are left unanchored, the effects could be
State legislators realized the importance of anchoring mobile homes when they passed a law in 2016 that made mobile homes be tied down according to age.
devastating.
The law states that whoever violates the anchoring requirement
should be charged with a misdean, but it is unclear as to who should enforce anchoring of mobile homes.
Officials in the state Department of Administration say the county should be responsible for enforcing new laws, but they have no time to inspect trailers.
Lawrence also has an ordinance requiring trailer anchors, but like the county, the city does not actively enforce those ordinances.
Most insurance companies require that trailers be anchored according to state specifications before a policy can be written.
The only organizations that attempt to keep trailers in line with state and city regulations are insurance companies.
Indeed, the government seems to have shifted the burden of enforcing state laws to insurance companies
The poor residents will also not likely spend the money on anchoring their trailers as anchoring even the longest trail could run about $100.
But many of the poorer trailer residents who cannot afford to insure their homes will not be forced to rent. The government enforcement agency seems to care.
To many the cost of anchoring their homes is meager, but to others, the cost represents groceries, clothes and other essentials.
The money for anchoring the
trailers should be available, though. Various social agencies hand out thousands of dollars to the impoverished for other, less basic needs.
If this happens, however, the burden of inspecting mobile homes would probably shift to the already overloaded social agencies.
Some mobile home residents have demonstrated that they will not or cannot adhere to anchoring laws. An honor system has failed in this area.
The answer, then, is unclear. One now wants to take responsibility for enforcing the state anchoring laws. But it's hard because the city is negligent. And the city is negligent.
Those agencies could also provide supplies to impoverished residents who live in mobile homes and cannot afford anchoring.
And although the government's failure to enforce these laws may not affect us this year or the next, sooner or later, our failure to abide by reasonable safety measures will catch up with us.
We will then see people needlessly killed and it will be too late.
U.S. needs to welcome the refugees
The refugees fleeing Central America are parents, children, students, professors, farm workers and many others.
Although they are recognized by many other countries as political refugees, the United States has need to acknowledge them as such.
This, despite passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, which adopted the U.N. Protocol on Refuges, an international accord under which refugees are in need of fear of persecution in their home country should be given asylum
If there is anything scary about these people who are *feeing* Latin America, it is that many are a lot more horrible and the people who make up my world.
They have had to leave behind their homes, communities, jobs and sometimes, a certain security that they have often spent a lifetime building.
It is difficult for most of us to
MARGARET
SAFRANEK
We don't daily have to stop and wonder whether we will find a missing parent or sibling lying in a cave somewhere when he is late getting home.
fathom what it is like to be told that a death squad is looking for us because we were seen stopping by a sure sign of subversiveness.
Nor do we have to resign ourselves in frustration to his death when the authorities tell us he was killed for going to political meetings, when we know he had simply joined a group of friends for dinner.
People in the United States who talk with Central American refugees hear these stories.
Many of the atrocities involve common people — store clerks, artists, laborers — people similar to many North Americans I know.
One of the largest groups to take a long hard look at the situation in Latin America has been churches across the country.
From a convent of Catholic nuns in Kansas to a Baptist church in Cambridge, Mass., with Mennonites, Lutherans, Jews and Quakers along the way, members of religious denominations have contemplated, discussed and prayed about the issue of Central American refugees seeking haven in the United States.
Many of the church people also have learned how ordinary these people are, wanting little more than
Most of them have concluded that the least they can do for the refugees is to take them in as they make their way from Central America through
But the issue for these churches is not always an easy one.
Without the refugee status, the Salvadorans and others from Central America come with neither stamped visas nor governmental approval.
the right to live, without death squads and guerrillas deciding who should have that right.
Thus, everyone transporting,
feeding or harboring the Salvadorans is guilty of aiding illegal immigrants.
Congressman J. Joseph Moakley, D-Mass., has sponsored a bill that is now before several committees in the House of Representatives. The bill would give the Salvadorans extended voluntary departure status and allow them to stay in this country until the Reagan Administration thoroughly investigates the situation in El Salvador, has hearings on its findings and is able to provide some reasonable guarantees for the refugees' safety once they are deported.
So far, 100 other members of Congress have co-sponsored the
Moakley bill and more support is expected before the bill goes before the entire House.
Few people aware of the situation in Central America, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, deny that the Salvadorans seeking refuge in this country fall under the political refugee status
And sometime before summer is out, when a vote is taken on the Mooney hill. Congress may alif last week or next month if bluff on retufees from El Salvador
What Moakley and the others who have signed onto his bill understand but the Reagan administration has chosen to ignore is that these people are not subversives, engaged in all kinds of political activities, nor are they opportunists, abandoning their world back in El Salvador to find economic fortune in the United States.
They are people who have fled a situation that grows more horrent with each passing day, with the American military and provided by the U.S.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I want to express the importance of having the two-sided argument. If there hadn't been an opposing view, I would have written this letter to imply that purpose.
A two-sided approach
Because the article, "Prayer in Public Schools," deals with moral and ethical values, I think that the article caught much attention and will create a lot of response.
If a child decides to become a smoker, the decision would stem from the child's free choice. When a teacher requests that the classroom remain standing for a moment of silent meditation (after the "Pledge of Allegiance") the individual does not have a free choice, and most likely a child in elementary school would feel like an outcast if he were the only one to sit down.
Secondly, I do not agree with the comment, "our children will lack a religious and moral foundation, which I think is more important to our country's future freedom and stability."
Deborah Baer was right when stating that a child should learn personal morals and beliefs in the privacy of the home and that this is a subject that should be taught by parents.
Our country will create a greater abundance for the "country's future freedom and stability," if a child is taught about the different cultures and beliefs all people have all around the world.
I do not think that there will be much freedom in our country's future if a child sees a classmate as 'ouatocet' or a 'minority' if the other is the student who does not see the class. School is for education — not relation.
Rachel Abrams Wichita junior
Meeting campaign goal
To the editor:
In response to Robyn Marriott's letter in the
To the editor:
As a concerned student I must rise to the
height of Koenius' column on March 7 and
her statement.
March 7 issue of the University Daily Kansan, we would like to say, "Thank you, Robyn Marriott!"
vowed to do anything in our power that would spur more student involvement in our student government.
We would, however, like to express one note of clarification. The whole idea behind this attitude and the resulting argument or disapproval of students is to involve and acquaint them with what is going on at the University and in our student government.
Obviously, our strategy worked superbly in Miss Marriot's case.
Being labeled ignorant by Miss Marriot is a harsh accusation. Ignorant, by dictionary definition, means showing lack of knowledge or intelligence.
Well Robyn, in your case, it's like the pot calling the kettle black.
We thoroughly explained our platform and entertained questions in a forum at your dormitory in which you, a student senator, did not attend.
Overall, we think we've done a great service for the University of Kansas.
It is true that times have changed, but the essential sources of the problems that divided this country from one another were
Bob Swain. Topeka junior
These were the primary concerns of the Apathy -
  It Just Doesn't Matter Coalition.
Education can be a powerful tool for either the progression or the preservation of a social order.
we talk during the February election centered on student apathy and the need for changes in state policies.
Even though Miss Marriott was a bit off base, we urge her to keep writing letters and to be content that she too has helped to bring attention to the sad state of student government at KU.
Bob Swain, Tupima Jr.
Robb Murphy, Washington, Iowa, junior
We earnestly believe that our campaign had a significant influence on the other candidates and had we not been involved, many fewer people would have become aware of the problems in our
Column told the truth
Those who see 1984 as being a totally different political situation than the one present in 1964 are being fatally superficial in looking at the world historical process.
Perhaps it is true that the majority of KU students are here for a sound education, but it is high time that they each stepped back and questioned the nature of their learning.
These trends are both the reflection of narrowing social attitudes and the perversion of
As economic pressures increase, the traditions of free thought, as opposed to a training program for academic and business moguls, are sacrificed for the American status quo.
But activism is not dead in Lawrence. Some of us uphold the real value of education in the ability to question and push forward relevance and justice in human institutions.
In that spirit we strive to diminish the apathy and narcissistic attitudes.
It does not take much insight to see that residents of an upper-class institution such as KU will support any means towards their white-collar aspirations.
Expansionist economics and individualistic concerns cannot be maintained indefinitely.
we must join together or face a future that will make the '60s look like an ice cream social.
Jim Eighmey
Mulvane graduate student