UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
September 7,1978
Right of choice exists
A decision to extend the billing date for tuition at the University of Kansas Medical Center School of Medicine has averted a premature confrontation with medical students involved in a lawsuit challenging the legality of a new scholarship program.
Wisely, Med Center officials did not force the issue of whether medical students who are recipients of scholarships can also act as plaintiffs in the suit. Instead, the matter was dumped in the lap of the Shawnee County District Court, where a ruling on the issue is expected tomorrow.
THE SUIT was filed after the Kansas Legislature approved a bill raising tuition 267 percent for medical students but also providing free tuition for each year a student agreed to practice in Kansas after graduation.
District Court Judge William Carpenter also is to rule on motions to dismiss the case because of insufficient cause of action and a motion for summary judgment in favor of the University.
Carpenter's ruling will decide the fate of 57 students who entered the suit as plaintiffs, but who were forced to withdraw rather than forfeit the scholarship. However, there still are 235 plaintiffs in the case, and if the judge rules in favor of the students, the 57 could re-enter the suit while receiving the scholarships.
The medical students in the suit say they are not opposed to a scholarship program designed to cope with the problem of a physician shortage in Kansas. Instead they oppose the "coercive" approach taken by the Legislature.
THEY ARGUE that the tuition increases are so drastic that currently enrolled medical students have no "right of choice," but to accept the scholarships even if they preferred not to practice in Kansas.
Although their complaints have some validity, several choices, though limited, do exist. Students should be able to arrange some type of special loan considering their potential salaries after graduation, and there are always other medical schools where students could transfer.
It is unfortunate that such a harsh "incentive" system was required to help check the growing problems of health care in Kansas. Political realities, however, often must dictate less than the ideal, and the Legislature, acting with the people's mandate, has provided a potential solution that merits a trial.
AS FUTURE doctors, committed to the advancement of the healing arts, medical students should view the current physician shortage in Kansas as a windfall, and the new scholarship program as means to attain it.
Viewers to blame for TV's influence
Television is under attack again this fall.
As the networks begin broadcasting their shows in the fall, the debate over programs is heating up.
The PTA recently published its annual listing of best and worst shows from the last television season, based on the degree of sex or violence in programs.
Among the year's worst shows listed by the PTA were "Kojak," B.C., "Charlie's Angels," ABC and "Police Woman," NBC, "And Police Woman" have been canceled.
According to Sandra Fink, PTA director of public information, the rankings were not intended to censor what viewers could see. The organization is trying to get the networks to provide more responsibility in programming, she said.
TELEVISION was challenged again when NBC-TV was hit with an $11-million lawsuit, charging the network with negligence in airing a movie called "Born Incent."
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Hope lingers for South African peace
ANNISTON, Ala.—When Kingdom came he reminded me of my first impressions of South Africa: of a nation of ethnic islands where no group speaks to the other and only strangers, foreigners like myself, walk the invisible bridges among them.
Bv BRANDT AYERS
N. Y. Times Feature
He was the last of our South African visitors this summer. The others had been politicians, academics, writers, men of affairs and businessmen.
BUT KINGDOM LOLWANE showed little understanding of these political nuances and no enthusiasm for conversation about them.
Each of our other visitors had a jest for political talk. Our conversations had been vigorous and illuminating, revealing the various facets of the political world.
Kingdom is black. He has no political rights in his own land. He is a 22-year reporter for the black newspaper, the Post, a tapid successor to the World, a more outspoken journal banned by the South African government last October.
Although young, Kingdom has about him the composed, almost weary fatalism of a man three times his age. In Soweto—the poor, black twin of rich, white Johannesburg—he is a leader in a family of leaders.
HIS FATHER is a member of the Committee of Ten, unofficial but acknowledged black leaders of the Soweto township of approximately 1.5 million. Kingdom was a prefect at school, a student leader at a desperate and tragic moment in the history of his coun-
There is no way to tell how many died. The police lorries came and the limp bodies of the dead and wounded boys were thrown into the trucks like sacks of meal. The official count is that 178 of Kingdom's playmates, classmates and neighbors died that day.
I remember being shown the green hill where the Soweto student uprising started. I tried to imagine how it looked and sounded: hundreds of young men and boys shouting and running in ragged lines toward the police below. The sound of the charging boys was met by another, the THRRRRR, THHRRRR of automatic weapons. The climbing changed pitch, there were screams, pandemonium, retreat.
responsibility. Everyone should be accountable for his actions, no matter what he does.
WITHIN TWO MONTHS, he was arrested. He went to jail with advice of his father ringing in his head, "Let my boy, my son, you know what I want."
How does a young man who has heard that, and knows from the only experience available to him that it is true, perceive his future
Parents who complain that T is harming their children, also are avoiding their ruins.
Can the Soweto uprising happen again—will it?
"Yes, it can happen again," says Kingdom sadly, wearily, "but the young men say, 'What is the use? What good will it do?' It is so bitter not to be able to hit back. They can kill blacks, put us in jail and beat us but we cannot hit back. It is bitter."
WHEN I WAS in South Africa, I had my foreign passport, my own powerful government to escort me across the bridges he cannot even see among the islands separating black, brown Indian and even the English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking whites. I have spent hours and hours talking with their leaders in South Africa and in my own home.
But Kingdom may not be as lonely as he thinks. He can remember talking at length with only one African, a descendant of the French who was born in Montserrat.
without the incredible psychological weight of living day-to-day as a black or a white liberal in that country pressing down on you, and as a conservative in that country pressing up.
Television was not designed to be a baby-sitter and parents who use it as such are responsible for any harmful influence it might have on their children. Again, the importance of being aware of anyone who is offended by what he sees, or who fears psychological damage.
I believe political change is easier to achieve and, therefore, more likely. For armed struggle to be effective it would require an incredibly broad, complex and secret organizational structure. It would also require a strong police force, riot tactics must be recruited and paid. Guerrillas must be recruited, trained, armed and sent back from safe bases across South Africa's borders, secured by friendly black govern-
There is a huge political void in the center of the political life of South Africa. In the past 15 years, the government and the people have moved inch-by-inch so far away from the essence of the idea of freedom, equality, openness to be clear, practical, safe and reliable way of thinking about the future.
WHAT WILL FILL the void? are those who insist that only armed struggle can bring about change and others who believe in peace?
Perhaps, just perhaps, in four or six years time, Kingdom can go home again and his father may be able to say to him, "Some good things have happened, my boy, you are not so alone, my boy, my son."
It could come to that, but not for a long, long time. For that reason my growing hope and expectation is that there can be orderly political change. But, meanwhile, what will become of Kingdom?
HE WANTS to go to college in the United States. It will be a good experience for him because it is necessary to leave home in order to study there.
THE PRESSURE on the television industry to remove so-called offensive programs—programs, incidentally, that are so offensive they can be used by public is unwilling to censor its own viewing.
Brandt Avers is editor and publisher of the Anniston, Ala., Star.
His comment raises the question of who is responsible for TV's negative influence on youth.
The PTA always has taken the stand that violent programs can harm children psychologically and make them more prone to violent behavior.
The parents of the nine-year-old agreed
with T&L, saying their race was inspired
by African descent.
NO ONE IS FORCED to watch TV. A viewer knowing selects what he is going to watch, finds the program to be interesting.
However, the viewer has the ultimate responsibility for what he watches and how he interprets it.
The movie depicted the rape of a teen-age girl and preceded by four days a similar attack in San Francisco on a nine-year-old girl. The court's decision that NBC should be held responsible for the rape.
The network's lawyer argued that television programming was protected by the First Amendment. The case was dismissed when the judge decided the plaintiffs had not shown that NBC intended to incite the attack.
Blaming TV programming for violent acts is a way of shrirzing, off individual
AFTER THE DISMISSAL, the plaintiffs'
lawyer said the First Amendment was being used to kill the minds of youngsters.
A turn of the wrist is all it takes to shut off a distasteful program.
MPA FELLY THERE'S MORE TO BE GOLD THAN BLUE. © EARL WILSON
Doctrine of Catholic Church clear, unchanged by transition to new pope
To the editor:
After reading the editorial of Aug. 30 concerning continued reform in the Catholic Church, one wonders if Dirck Steimel has written or is merely writing up the head of his head.
Although celibacy may not be a permanent requirement for the religious life in the Catholic Church, to assume that celibacy would be waived solely in the interest of maintaining this section of the church, it is important to regard vocations is a difficult one and not one that can or should be answered in such a basty and uniform manner.
Pope John Paul I has assumed the leadership of a growing community of Catholics. He has my support and that of the more than 700 million fellow Catholics in the world today. I have no doubt that the church will continue to change, and it will do so to enrich and sanctify the lives of its members and those of the whole world.
First of all, the 'ancient Catholic institutions such as fish on Friday, Latin Masses and special clothing for priests and nuns' did not fall by the wayside after Vatican II. While it is true that in most instances the stringent requirements were imposed on church attitudes and motivations of the church concerning these institutions haven't changed.
By the way, where is the "fatherly
maternal sister always been the "Mother
Church" to me.
The church has always maintained the infallibility of the pope when speaking on matters of Catholic dogma, while recognizing his fallibilities as a human being. Celibacy has been a church law for at least 800 years, since the First Council of Aachen and the church's answer to the birth control question has been widely known since 1968.
Contraception is not the only logical way to achieve family planning. To assume this stand emphasizes Stetimel's ignorance regarding the many successful methods of contraception available today and the huge amount of ongoing scientific research in this area.
Catholices are still strongly encouraged to make sacrifices such as giving up meat on Fridays. Latin Masses have been changed to native languages only to enhance the participation in the Mass by fellow Catholics. Latin Masses are given the option of accepting the habit in recognition of the different areas of society in which nuns and priests work today.
The 1968 "Humane Vitae" Encyclical may have been a controversial one but it did not "throw a wrench in the reform movement" nor did it do anything to make unclear the role of the church in the modern world. Also, the questions of birth control, abortion and same-sex marriage remained unanswered throughout the past decade. The answers are quite clear.
Kathy Pierron
Olathe special student
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
University needs change in attitude
To the editor:
I read with interest your editorial in Friday's Kansan. Though you are predominantly positive about the University of Kansas' attempt to better access to the campus for handicapped people, I think you fail to communicate the needed attitude change, sorely missing from KU, in abundance at Emporia State University.
I have attended both universities, and though my disability is not as noticeable as a wheelchair, I favor the measures at Emporia State. Since I was 14, I've walked with major torn ligaments in my knee. In winter, the KU campus is a land mine of danger. Ice and snow are rarely cleared promptly. At Emporia State every effort is made to eliminate dangerous walking conditions before 7:30 a.m. classes.
It is a subtle difference and not as involved as, say, building an adequate handicap entrance, but it reflects a primary dedication to keeping the student safe on campus. In that respect KLags far behind the efforts at Emporia State.
During the summer I had my knee reconstructed and remain in a full leg cast. I have since discontinued my education at KU and returned to Emporia, not to attend classes because my educational preference is with KU, but to regain the use of my leg so
I can better encounter the traffic and the stairs behind Wescoe Hall.
Jennifer Roblez Former K.U. student
To the editor:
Editorial on Nixon unwarranted, unfair
Your editorial on Tuesday, Aug. 29, "Nixon in Boomerscan Once More," illustrates my complete lack of faith in the press. Allen Holder brings up points about how we cannot get rid of Nixon and his continuing spotlight in the public eye. Well, Al Baby, it is the very system that you work for that brings Nixon into the public eye.
Is it Nixon's fault that his daughter had a baby? It is the press that covered the event. Then I received the impression that you would celebrate tomorrow if Nixon died. What did of the man wanting to live a long life! My gosh, Al Baby, think of what you are saying.
Then, Al Baby, you came through again the very next day. You wrote an editorial critical of people setting records. Tell me, what kind of record is being created a new hand-clapping record? Does it offend you? Maybe you had a bad incident clawing your hands once. Records may not be important to you, but there seems to be a chance that you can enjoy reading about them and setting them.
Even you, Al Baby, set a record. Writing absolutely feelembled editors and writers.
Robert Pitcairn Leawood Senior
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