University Daily Kansan, August 18, 1983
Opinion
An absurd law
Several University of Kansas students are putting their signatures on discriminatory documents these days. Federal law is requiring students who receive federal financial aid to sign a statement saying they have registered for the draft.
The intent of the law is to prevent violators of draft registration from receiving the aid. But the result is that the law affects only the broke students who need the money. Those fortunate ones who have daddy pay the way don't have to sign a thing.
About 4,500 KU students will have to sign the forms. Males who are 18 years old or older and were born in 1960 or after must register for the draft, according to federal law.
The architects of the financial aid requirement weren't happy with just
making it discriminatory; they also added a twist of the absurd. If you're a woman receiving financial aid, you have to sign a separate box saying you're exempt.
you're exclam. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun issued an opinion in June saying the rule requiring registration as a prerequisite for financial aid was legal. A decision on the law is pending before the court.
The requirement is now causing headaches for school administrators. It is not only discriminatory and absurd but it has become a burden for financially strapped universities. A KU financial aid official said the requirement was an extra burden because his office didn't have the extra manpower or money to administer it.
The obvious thing to do is to scrap the ill-conceived requirement.
Opinion page will reflect ideals on KU's campus
By STEVE CUSICK Editorial Editor
This page, a black and white collection of thoughts and ideas, belongs to you.
This page is the place where you can have your say. This is the place for your cause. And to make sure you may have your say, the Kansan editors have decided on a few changes to make the editorial pages more accessible to individuals and groups during the coming semester.
Guest columns will appear twice a week, and readers can expect a daily assortment of letters to the editor. The Kansan now also has an editorial board to listen to the queries and criticisms from those who object to Kansan policy. We're ready to sit down and chat with you.
A special coordinator will handle the scheduling of guest columns. The Kansan will be soliciting columns throughout the semester, but an individual or a group with a gripe should feel free to call us about a column. The columns will be subject to normal newsroom editing procedures.
A picture of the person who wrote the column
will accompany the author's masterpiece. Subject matter will likely vary, and the perspectives and philosophies represented in the book may change as surely as Kansas weather changes.
The letters policy will be slightly different from the past. Letters will be restricted to 300 words or less. If they're longer, they won't go in the paper. But it's easy to say "that's wrong" or "that's right" in a couple of words and then support the message with the other words.
It would be impossible to print every letter to the editor. We'll print as many as we can.
Individuals or groups who think the Kansan took the wrong road on some issue should give us a call, and if we think their concern is legitimate, we'll invite them to an editorial board meeting.
The board will be the main policy setting body for the editorial page; staff members have
The idea behind these changes is to make the Kansan editorial page truly a forum for ideas floating about Mount Oread. After all, this is a great place to think and measure chest of free-thinking ideas in America.
And the place for the exchange of ideas at the University of Kansas is the editorial page of the KAIS.
By DIANE LUBER
Maybe mom will vote in 1984
Staff Columnist
Ronald Reagan would like my mother.
In 1960, the presidency was just a twinkle in Reagan's eye, and John F. Kennedy had inspired in me an enthusiastic, albeit naive, interest in politics. As I watched my father, a stunned Republican, go off to the polls to vote Republican, I asked my mother why she didn't vote.
"If I voted, I would just be canceling out your fathers' vote." she said.
Reagan can't be held responsible for these sociological trends, but he can be taken to task for his actions and opinions that have alienated women.
Kansas' own Nancy Landon Kassebaum, one of only two women, both Republicans, in the U.S. Senate, summarized the opinions of women well.
Many women feel the economic cutbacks
My mother was like most women in 1960, who either did not vote or, if they did, held political opinions that were virtually indistinguishable from men's.
But that trend ended in 1980 during Reagan's presidential campaign. Women began to buck that tradition of political passiveness, and many women actively opposed Reagan early in the campaign, polls show.
Jerry T. Jennings, demographic statistician in the Census Bureau's population division, estimates that by 1984 the percentage of women voters will exceed the percentage of men voters. The reason, he said, is that women who reach voting age vote more frequently than do men in the same category, and those women replace older women, like my mother, who have lower voting rates.
Polls show that as more women enter the work force, more of them vote. The more educated they are, the more likely they are to vote.
And once the votes were tallied, Reagan had a huge victory among male voters but only broke even with women. Forty-seven percent of all women voted for Reagan. 45 percent voted for Jimmy Carter.
She was 31 in 1960, but women who are now between 18 and 40, particularly women with college backgrounds, have Reagan running scared.
As recent polls by the news media and political consulting firms show more women voting and more women finding fault with Reagan and the Republicans, Reagan probably is wishing he had a few more friends like my mother.
more personally, and I think, especially among women, there is a fear of what they see as a growing sense of militarism in the country," she said.
Polls bear Kassebaum's statement out.
A New York Times-CBS News poll taken in 1982 reported that although only 38 percent of the men surveyed said they thought Reagan would get the United States into war, 52 percent of the women polled were convinced he had wartime intentions.
Three Gallop poll taken in January this year found that, as an average, although 33 percent of the men polled approved of the dress code, only 26 percent of the women approved.
The rift between men and women's opinions was even greater on the issue of war, according to the Gallup polls. Although 53 percent of the men approved of Reagan's defense policy, only 36 percent of the women approved.
Reagan's economic and defense policies have alienated women far more than his stands on abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, polls show.
However, two weeks ago at the annual convention of the International Federation of Business and Professional Expositions in New York, they predominantly Republican members voted unanimously not
One of the Reagan administration's most recent actions promises to aggravate his already strained relationship with women in the nation's colleges.
The Justice Department filed a brief with the Supreme Court two weeks ago arguing that only a specific school program receiving federal money, not the entire school, is prohibited from discriminating against women. Under such an interpretation, housing laws prohibit private and other programs that don't receive money directly from the federal government would no longer have to comply with federal law prohibiting sexual discrimination.
As a token of his appreciation for women,
Reagan recently proclaimed Aug. 26 as Women's Equality Day. Sixty-three years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, became law.
As women celebrate the 64th anniversary of their voting rights next year, perhaps they will use their newly discovered strength at the polls to unseat the man who offers only three percent of the vote in many changes, who whispers sweet nothings but steals women's right to an equal education.
Who knows? Maybe my mom will even vote.
Arms flow from U.S. despite certifications
By Robert Shepard
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Congress, in a constant search for new ways to assert its will, has come up with several dubious schemes, including the legislative veto and presidential certifications.
The legislative veto, by which Congress could vote to reverse administration policy, was tossed out recently by the Supreme Court. The veto will fill around, despite its apparent ineffectiveness.
The most prominent use of the presidential certification involves El Salvador, where the United States is trying to improve human rights and to stop a guerrilla war.
In 1891, Congress said that for El Salvador to continue to receive U.S. aid, the country had to improve human rights for its citizens. The law directed the president to issue a report every six months for two years to certify the anticipated progress.
The certification reports have been submitted as directed, but the result has been disappointing to many members of Congress and others concerned about the problems of Central America. The chief complaint is that the president has certified progress in human rights when none has been made, or at least not enough to talk about.
in the book. "Certifying the uncertifiable" was the way a senator characterized one report. A later report was termed a "sham."
Even supporters of the original 1981 law have shown little enthusiasm for an extension of the certification requirement.
More recently, certification requirements were added to the Defense Department's 1984 authorization bill. The amendments amount to little more than face-saving devices for
One amendment deals with President Reagan's decision to resume production of chemical weapons. The Senate voted for production, but the House voted against it. The House-Senate conference committee then agreed to let the president have his way.
But the confections added a provision that final assembly of the chemical-laden artillery shells could not take place unless the president ordered that such assembly was essential to national interest.
The bill contains a certification provision for the new anti-satellite missile program; the provision says tests of the new weapon can be carried out only if the president certifies that the United States is trying to negotiate a ban with the Soviet Union on anti-satellite weapons.
Again, the administration asked for the missile program and clearly thinks stucch the missile program.
And requirement of efforts toward a ban on anti-satellite weapons is not likely to slow the development and testing program. The administration can meet that requirement if it simply suggests to the Soviets that such negotiations take place.
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VISTA gives view of hope to elderly folks
By KATE DUFFY Staff Columnist
Down in Wichita there are some extraordinary individuals who have performed what some might consider a minor miracle. Three elderly, black Wichitans have taken their community by storm and recruited close to 170 volunteers to help with the work they who simply cannot do the work themselves.
Most of the volunteers are teen-agers. They mow lawns, fix broken windows, clean houses, run errands and do numerous other chores for elderly residents who are tied to their homes because of age or illness. And program coordinator Wanda Bell says that in the 1½ years since the program began, there have been no problems of vandalism or theft, much to the surprise of some of Bell's fellow social service workers.
Bell attribits the success of the YES (Youth Extending Service) program to Jim and Dorothy Harrison and Winzel James, all in their 60s and united in their predominantly black northeast section.
They receive a small salary from the federal government through the Volunteers in Service to America program (VISTA), which was started in the mid-1960s to fight poverty.
The volunteers serve a year and help to solve the age-old problems that plague low-income and disabled residents. They must rely on their talents and whatever resources the communities have to offer. Those resources usually don't include cash but do include a lot of ideas, effort and sweat by the VISTA workers and the people they serve.
Many times, the results are more than satisfying. In Wichita, for instance, VISTAs signed up more volunteers than they had planned on in their VISTA grant application by visiting churches, schools and youth groups.
Closer to home, Lawrence VISTA workers in the past 10 years have helped to get fledgling neighborhood associations off the ground in the East Lawrence and the Oread neighborhoods. Over the years, the East Lawrence VISTA workers have helped residents stop construction of a highway through their neighborhood, assisted residents in the sprucing up of the
neighborhood park and helped start a house painting program.
In Oread, VISTA workers have helped to promote a neighborhood newsletter, to build up a tool-rental program and to continue a crime watch program, in which an extensive block captains organized residents to keep an eye on for their neighbors' Safety and belongings.
VISTA's focus over time has changed from one of political organizing of the poor to providing of social services for the disabled, the elderly poor and other disadvantaged groups.
As an organization, VISTA is lucky to be alive. ACTION, a federal agency that oversees the VISTA program, had plans to let the program die through no authorization of any more money for new VISTA positions after March 1982. A strong lobbying effort by Friends of VISTA, a group whose goal is to keep the program going, alerted Congress to ACTION's plans, and Congress ordered that ACTION continue to finance VISTA.
At this point, VISTA is alive and kicking, according to James Byrnes, director of the ACTION office for Kansas and Missouri, Kansas
now has 61 VISTA* working on a variety of projects throughout the state. With Congress behind the program, Byrnes says he and other state directors are predicting that the 1984 VISTA budget would be $22 million dollars, up $11 million from 1983's budget.
And, he says, this increase would mean more VISTAs for Kansas and Missouri — more people who care what happens to the low-income and disabled residents who benefit from the program.
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 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 staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters.