OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
March 6.1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kaman (USPS 650-646) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Fint Hall, Lawrence, KS. 60043, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, on behalf of the Kaman Foundation. The address is 2500 Washington Street, by mail are $15 for six months or $7 a year in Douglas County and $15 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a a semester fee through the student activity费 POSTMASTER. Address changes to students will be announced.
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX SARA KEMPIN
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
PAUL JESS
CORT GORMAN
Retail Sales Manager
National Sales Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
Let center build
JANICE PHILIPS  DUNCANCALHOU
Campus Sales Manager  Classified Manager
Just when there was hope that the St. Lawrence Catholic Student Center and the Crescent-Engel Neighborhood Association might get to work mending fences, the neighborhood association made a last-ditch effort to prevent the religious group from building its proposed church.
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
On Friday, the association appealed the Board of Zoning Appeal's Feb. 2 decision, which determined that the proposed building was a church and not a school and, therefore, was subject to different zoning regulations.
This was but one of the technicalities from which the neighborhood group attempted to gain in opposing the construction.
As a result of such efforts, construction of the church is already 120 days behind schedule. Catholic students at KU have waited long enough for a church.
The neighbors, opposed to the Catholics' proposed building on the edge of campus, have done everything they could to have a significant say in the plans.
Several of the concessions they have won from the Catholics will undoubtedly help the building fit in with the neighborhood a little better.
The center will have to be built further back from the street, leaving more green space. The Lawrence City Commission also made several other restrictions before approving the church's building proposals.
Present building plans for the Catholic church have fewer seats than the original proposal. A chapel that was supposed to have been built is now contingent upon the Catholics acquiring additional land adjacent to their property.
Now it is time for the Crescent-Engel Neighborhood Association to realize that, although it still may have several legal options available to affect the construction, the City Commission looked long and hard before giving its stamp of approval to the Catholic center.
The go-ahead has been given, and the Crescent-Engel Neighborhood Association should let the building begin.
Concerts are welcome
The leaders of Student Union Activities have found a winner in their Thursday night concerts at the Frank R. Burge Union.
So far this semester SUA has presented two of the concerts, which feature area bands.
And last week, an estimated 400 people saw Fools Face, a group that has understandably attracted a large local following.
Two weeks ago, the popular group Shann and the Scams brought its Motown sound to about 250 students at the Burge Union.
Best of all, the concerts are free. Yes, that's right, free. Of course, beer and other refreshments are available for a price. But for students on a tight budget, an inexpensive evening of entertainment must be particularly welcome.
The concerts are part of an effort to make the Burge Union better known, according to Shelly Stucky,
SUA president. The union, which is northwest of Allen Field House, often is forgotten when students run down their mental check list of where to go and what to do.
SUA is planning to present more concerts for KU students later this semester. Although specific arrangements have not been completed, Stucky said that students would have an opportunity to hear three or four more bands at similar concerts.
The Thursday evening concerts, which run from about 8 until midnight, also provide students a break from studies near the end of the week. As the semester goes on, such study breaks are likely to become all the more popular.
The concerts are likely to make the Burge Union more well-known. More than that, however, the concerts provide KU students with good entertainment. If the crowds so far are any indication, the concerts are a rousing success.
Ruling hurts labor law
Filing for bankruptcy has become a way for troubled businesses to reduce labor costs.
As the number of bankruptcy filings has increased, it has become evident that some standard is needed to determine when a company is troubled enough to warrant breaking a union contract. Union leaders had hoped Congress would act.
Unfortunately for labor, the Supreme Court acted first, reversing a ruling of the National Labor Relations Board and setting a standard that plainly serves business interests.
bts.
In a larger sense, the court's
An important aspect of rebuilding the industrial base of the American economy is cooperation between labor and management.
As Justice William Brennan argues in the dissenting opinion, the court's decision "deprives the parties to the agreement of their 'system of industrial government.'
ruling undermines the spirit of labor law and the commitment to provide mechanisms for resolving disputes between labor and management.
Unfortunately, the court has struck an untimely blow for adversarial relations.
Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal
The University Daily Kanan 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 class and home town or faculty or position. The Kanan will contact the invite individual to submit guest columns, Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kanan office. 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kanan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Classified research danger
A growing interest has arisen at the University of Kansas to loosen restrictions on classified research, research that is not open to "... inspection and appraisal by any legitimately interested person
A proposal to change University policy, which has been tendered but
Although many traditional sources of research have dried up and new sources must be found, students and administrators must ask themselves. Could classified sources endanger academic freedom?
not yet adopted, would authorize these three new classifications of research:
The proposed changes would also allow a three-member research subcommittee to decide whether a research center should serve the interests of the University.
The proposal calls for safeguards to prevent conflict of interest on the part of the investigators, but the criteria for determining the addection of these safeguards would be unknown the rest of the University community.
While partial classification could be routinely justified in many instances, indefinite or total classification — presently allowed only during a declared national emergency — could raise the
- Partial classification, in which a minor part of the research methods or data are classified.
- "Temporary" classifications for more than one year (the present policy allows one year of secrecy).
- Indefinite or total classification imposed by government agencies, typically Department of Defense contracts.
specter of secrecy in an otherwise open community.
Students and other employees of such projects would be screened and possibly required to obtain a Defense Department security clearance. Their work could not be used to evaluate academic goals, such as a thesis or dissertation, until it was de-classified.
Free and open peer review, a widely accepted criterion of academic freedom, would effectively classify all research projects.
Laboratories housing classified projects would become off-limits to many people with a legitimate, acce- tional interest in the work being conducted.
Only those peers having an appropriate clearance and a "need-to-know" would be allowed to review the work. Within the University community, this group of "peers" would contact the researchers, the research subcommittee and representatives from the sponsoring organization.
This group would be entrusted with measuring the value of the work against a standard that states "the research is likely to contribute so significantly to the advancement of knowledge as to justify the basic infringement upon the open publication of results."
The peer group's ability to judge its own work is questionable, given such a lofty and subjective ideal as the advancement of knowledge.
The stated goal of the proposed changes is to allow scholars to pursue classified research, notably in aerospace, particle physics, communications and other militarily sensitive areas.
The bottom line, however, is research financing. While normal channels of financing for research have slowed or ceased, the federal government's financing for defense research has grown increasingly attractive to researchers and administrators alike.
Many lucrative, but secret, research contracts lie in the industrial innovation area as well. In either case, academic freedom in the traditional sense is sacrificed for research dollars.
With constant pressure to find new sources of financing and to maintain state-of-the-art research facilities, the research committee must tread a difficult three-way balance among the motivations of private industries, the federal government and academic freedom.
In either case, academic freedom in the traditional sense is sacrificed for research dollars.'
While most citizens accept technological advancement for national security as a necessary evil, many members of the University community would rightly be incensed by the use of University equipment and research talent for the sake of industrial profit, especially if classification is invoked to protect proprietary secrets.
The extension of temporary classification to more than one year would open an avenue along which researchers could be performed.
Development and marketing strategies that don't meet the "ad-vancement of knowledge" criterion required for total classification could be veiled in secrecy with a "temporary" classification.
The decision to allow this secreture in the negotiation and renewal of research contracts would again rest primarily upon three people, hardly a representative sample in a community of 25.000.
In considering the proposed changes in University policy to allow classified research, the faculty Senate and the University at large must face tough and often conflicting goals.
The road to continued academic freedom may not be smoothly paved or brightly lit, but the highway of classified research could well end in a minefield.
Tony Olson is a Lawrence sophomore and a former employee of the University of Kansas Center for Research Inc.
Senate a joke but be careful as you laugh
I remember her as the shortest girl in my elementary school. Like me, she was usually one of the last to be picked for teams during gym class at Brookwood in Shawnee Mission.
This short, introverted girl is now our student body president, Carla Vogel.
I kind of lost touch with Carla over the years, so it's really not fair of me to tell that story. But she's a public figure now, so, what the heck.
The Costume Party won the election last week by a landslide 46 percent of the student vote.
But when you stop to figure that
only 10 percent of the student body decided to vote, that means 4.4 percent of the fellow students voted against him in the mate. Denis "Bog" Higgeryer
That makes a landslide the size of an anthill.
I think the time has come for us to realize what a joke the Student Senate has finally become. The Costume Party is the mimic line.
Let's break it down to the bare bones. Ever since I've been at this University, the Student Senate has approved a bill that, by the Greeks and for the Greeks,
Obsessed by making laws for itself, the Senate has lost credibility and direction in the past several years.
years
I'm speaking not only as a columnist but as an exstudent senator.
I'm not sure why I decided to run.
That's not really important. I ran and
won, later. I quit.
I wasn't ready to get involved with a game that was being consumed by its own rules, namely Robert's Rules of Order.
That's the book that dictates to senators the correct method of delaying issues until they are forgotten.
And now we have the Costume Party, which intends to throw out that moldy, incomprehensible text. The rulebook goes out the window, along with the last shred of credibility the Senate ever had.
Our president and vice president have no prior experience with Student Senate. They are about as active a senator in the school of the Senate as you can get.
But maybe that's good — starting from scratch. Maybe that's what Senate needs.
I doubt it though. Nothing can help Senate now. It's been downward for a decade, accelerating wildly.
The corrupt election in November only added less ballast and more speed. It ended with a crash Thursday night.
One warning to my fellow students: This Senate matter is a funny joke, but be careful while you laugh nearly a million dollars of our government hands.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Collective sigh of relief
To the editor:
Lisa Ashner is "relieved" that her "longest Senate term" is finished. Perhaps a collective sigh of relief from the student body should accompany her departure.
The University Daily Kansan has presented (Feb. 29, 1984) a selective list of accomplishments of the past year's Student Senate.
But one fact remains: All of the candidates in the nomination promised changes from the Senate of the past.
I am not trying to blame Lisa for the past history of the Senate, but several of the accomplishments of the Senate led by Lisa have been conveniently ignored.
It is now common knowledge that November's election was our greatest three-ring circus. Scaepigs need not be named, but it should be accepted. The school must accept responsibility for this incident.
This Senate has also attempted to eliminate the Minority Affairs Committee because its services were too limited; the committee is now deciding whether it will expand its potential role by adopting a definition of "minority" that will grant it greater influence in摆姿 the right to be represented by the committee.
Represented by the committee
This Senate used a mock referendum to justify imposing an increase in the Student Activity Fee upon the student body.
This Senate has also not sought student opinion, or chose to ignore this opinion when it was being considered.
Specifically, despite the objections voiced by hundreds of students through petitions, this Senate made an unprecedented grant of financing from our Student Activity Fee to the Eagle and Lesbian Services of Kansas — an organization that supports and by its very existence promotes deviant sexual behavior.
The actions of the Senate in the past have only strengthened the belief held by many students that the legitimacy of the Senate is guaranteed only by its "sole authority to allocate University funds designated as Student Activity fees," and by its ability to create issues rather than define and seek to meet the needs of the student body that it claims to represent.
Relief should be expressed by everyone that the time has come for positive changes in the present.
To the editor:
Douglas D. Hensley Kansas City, Mo., sophomore
Fairness is refreshing
To the editor:
This country's greatness is partially based on its founding fathers' fairness in looking at all sides of an issue and making an objective decision based on the information given.
In this day and age where our politicians and leaders are pictured as "bad guys," I find it refreshing that there are people who still are honest in their decisions.
on the information given.
It makes me proud to say that this quality in our leaders still lives on today, especially here in Lawrence.
LAWRENCE.
As an interested participant in the discussion of the proposed new Catholic church and student center to be built on the corner of Crescent and Engle roads, I have attended the Lawrence City Commission meetings concerning the issue.
These commissioners took a potentially explosive issue and dealt with it in a manner that is to be commended. They stuck with the bare facts and tried to wade through the emotions to reach a conclusion where both parties had to give up a little, but hopefully both will gain in the long run.
wunie attending these meetings, I have witnessed with great admiration the objectivity which commissioners Ernest Angino, Mike Amyx, Howard Hill and Mayor David Longhurst have used in making the decision which was reached Tuesday night concerning the proposed church and student center.
TO THE KNOWN
Every morning when I look at the University Daily Kansas, I hope that what is being said about Central America is the real truth.
Timothy Schneider
Lawrence freshman
Column is the real truth
Nothing could be more certain than what was said on december 28, 1984 about the Krieger Commission report.
It is true that the report "represents another attempt to see reality through East-West glasses and to ignore internal histories of Central America."
rhere is always talk about what is more con-
venient forador, Guatemala, Hon-
Costa Rica, Panama.
Everybody else seems to know what these countries should and should not do. Are all the people who make up these "countries" taken into account, or is it just a rulinary minority?
It is so easy to understand that none of these Central American countries are asking for any alien commission to decide their future.
All they ask is for freedom and justice. Central Americans, like other human beings, are capable of deciding their own way of life.
Nicaragua is building an ideal, even though it is being hurt by fake liberators. Nicaraguans are doing it and they will finish it.
Americans should support Central Americans because their own interests are not being protected in the "region."
Marta M. Morales
Guatemala sophomore