UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of
November 8, 1979.
Trial is a lesson
A complex but noteworthy retrial began last week in Wyandotte County District Court concerning a labiist involved former students and officials of the University of Kansas Medical Center.
The suit was filed in 1975 by Dante G. Scarpelli, former dean of academic affairs and former chairman of the department of pathology at the Med Center.
Named as defendants in the suit are Charles K. Lee, Nolan C. Jones, Charles Flynn and Ernest Turner. All four were students at the Med Center in 1947 and now are doctors. Chester Rempson, former head of the Med Center's affirmative action program, also is named as a defendant.
Scarpelli, now chairman of the pathology department at Northwestern University, charged that four former Med Center students had labled him in a complaint they filed in 1974.
Scarpelli, who seeks $650,000 in damages, has damaged him that the students and Rempson libeled him, maliciously persecuted him and conspired to violate his constitutional rights because he is white.
The suit resulted from a Department
of Health, Education and Welfare investigation in 1973 into possible Med Center practices that adversely affected minority students, in which Scarpelli was accused of discrimination.
The suit first came to trial in January 1978 but was declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of Scarlett.
The new trial brings the same judge and most of the same evidence back to the same courtroom. But this time the defendants are bringing in a new set of cases, including L. I. Meyerson, assistant general counsel for the NAACP's national legal staff.
Scarpelli's legal counsel is still calling it a local libel suit with no national ramifications.
Meyerson has said the case may have broad implications for affirmative action programs and for the need to redress possible racial discrimination.
Whatever the outcome, this retrial underscores the need for effective affirmative action programs—programs that deal with problems long ago and have to be solved in a four-year-old court battle that is yet to be concluded.
The tall white house at the corner of Fourth and Missouri streets stands as a monument to a more gracious era.
Wrecker dooms graceful old house
A broad front porch, floor-to-ceiling 'windows, ornate roof gables, a front yard of sweeping red cedars—the fine points of memorization a bit of architectural history.
But the 110-year-old house, built by Lawrence lawyer and judge George Banks, is not being celebrated for its grace and beauty.
Rather, it is scheduled to meet the wrecker's ball sometime within the next few months.
The Banks house, also known as Assean House, when it served as an alcoholic rehabilitation center a few years ago, will hold its annual retreat from June to September. Lawrence residents are successful.
So far, all attempts to save the Banks house have failed, despite the fact that it is free for the taking—the literal taking. Its owners, the Lawrence Memorial Hospital, will be offered to donate the house to anyone willing and able to move it from hospital property.
By wreaking or removing it, any way or the other, should go Robert Oileh, LMH manager in charge of the case caused problems since the LMH board it in 1974 with the rest of the black board.
"I'm afraid some cold winter night someone is going to break in and lie down with a cigarette and the whole place is going to up in flames." Ohien said. "I'm con-
"The place is apparently a known address among transients as a place where they can hole up for the night."
The swing front door and the bedrolls scattered on the floors confirm Ohlens's suspicions that the Ranks house is a molder of antlers. He was left by past and passing occupants, the
inside of the house looks as if the preservation efforts are coming a decade too late.
The plaster has peeled to the wall walls, where it hasn't been covered with cheap paneling. Cracked lineum covers the wall, causes moisture damage and every doorknob in the last owner. The roof is leaky and the porch, which appears so graceful, is shaky.
But there are many things that time and transients have not altered—the curving, carved balustrade the unmarried oak window, high-cedged rooms, the airy, high-ceilinged frames.
Ohlen says he has been advised that the house cannot be moved because it would fall apart.
But that has not deterred the few fans of historic preservation.
"I don't believe them," says Richard Kershenbaum, a member of the East Lawrence Improvement Association, who runs the organization and a lot in his neighborhood for the house.
"It's going to take a tremendous amount of money, but it can be done." Spear said.
And Richard Spear, president of the Pinckney Neighborhood Association, in whose area the house is located, said he had seen a house for sale at the Banks house was not an impossible case.
But even that tremendous amount is not great compared with the figures being thrown about on Lawrence's housing market.
Moving the house, within a few blocks,
will cost close to $10,000. Building a foundation for it will cost $10,000. And the
repairs that will be needed to make it livable will probably run another $10,000, Spear estimated.
The money is available from Community Development funds, if the house not to be used for personal purposes—if, for example, it is a vacation center, or even be resumed immediately.
The biggest stumbling block to the preservation effort is the land needed for the house. The building is an odd shape, long and skimy, with the three front doors all opening to the 75-foot-long side. It almost disappeared when it became identical to the one it has occupied since 1889.
"I'd rather see it demised than stuffed in the wrong lot," said Edgar Boles, a Pinckney resident who has studied the history of the house.
And Kersenbaum added that, even if he did find a lot in East Lawrence, the house might not be easy to sell.
"It will be expensive to maintain, but it won't be in a high-income neighborhood. I think it will take a very special kind of person," he said.
The impediments to preserving the Banks house are many, and time is running short. The LMH board expects the issue to be settled before it meets again Nov. 21.
The stately white house would be remodeled, and we'd have neighbors, those who are refreshed daily by its contrast to the severe and repetitive buildings that surround them, will be on vacation.
But when the sunlight filters through the windows, the silky cream of the solid oak beams that have supported the Banks house for most of Lawrence's lifetime, the loss—to every one of this town's homes—remains the greatest.
Victim-oriented system deters crime
BY LITTLE LEUCEE
Timer Spatial Feature
w. Y. Times Special Features
YORK—Youkery agrees that victims NEWORTH—youkery agree that victims lose their jobs from crime, but there is public concern that this would increase taxes. The fact is we can eat both our cake and have it too, and here how.
By ERIC ZUESSE
Suppose that prisoners were run as business corporations, operating for profit, with stock allocated to victims in proportion to their individual losses from crime. These houses of doom, now little more than multibillion-dollar schools of crime, are now criminals like the economy. And criminals, once they become convicts, victimize all taxpayers.
UNDER THE American system of management of prisons as criminal warehouses, conditions are so bad that a man was charged with murder and examined the last summer for the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the United States. Rights found them shaking and staggering. It was quoted as saying, "The federal and state prison administrations do not seem to have learned anything from the events at
Under the system I propose, penten-
tualism with the profits come to the people
with the profits come to the people
who deserve them—the victims. But not only will the victims and the taxpayers
Whatever else this may be, it is hardly a businesslike way to run lockups.
AN EX-CONVICT would come out of prison with marketable skills and, depending on the situation, he might victim, his wages on parole could be garrisoned to complete his debt and he could become a totally free citizen. It would thus not make him more vulnerable to criminal to become productively employable.
With prisons as profit-making institutions, cost-effective investments would be made in vocational training, work-place conveniences and automation to increase worker output and productivity. Products made and services performed by the prison personnel are sold in the market, and the profits would accrue dividends to the stockholders, the victims.
CORPORATE and white-collar crimin, which under the current setup are usually the most profitable, would not remain so attractive after a few object lessons of law. It is also with criminal companies being liquidated to the benefit of the prison corporation.
A major goal of any system of penal sanctions is deterrence of future crimes, and this goal, too, would be enhanced by a greater emphasis on punishment, example, would become less inclined to use violence if their sentences were calculated to compensate their victims' medical costs or earnings, which would put some muggers in bondage for life to their maimed victims.
KANSAN
Officials snub custodians
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
NOT ONLY would these former executives have the appropriate skills for such a task, but they also would be highly motivated to apply them since the length of their sentence would, allowing for the role of chance and look in the market, depend upon how timely it required for them to discharge their debt of victim compensation.
For example, when a dangerous
A few such warring demonstrations to would-be corporate criminals would do far more to reduce the nation's toll from enemy action, dangerous workplace conditions and the additives and medications that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Advisor, and the FDA have ever been able to achieve.
medication is marketed, the pharmaceutical manufacturer should be liable for the administration each case of a patient previously dying from an error. No prior Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug should protect the victim from such adverse conditions that are sufficient to compensate victims ought to be leveled and any culpable actions against them should be their time as convicts administering their victims' trust fund than wasting their skills, as white-collar criminals now do, at prison
Phasing out all regulatory agencies would save taxpayers an additional $103 billion yearly ($2,000 per family), according to the economist Murray Wiedemann, who is now at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The federal penal system, they wouldn't be needed at all."
The public pays too high a price to continue exempting and protecting the powerful by shouting their infractions off to the agencies instead of prisons. And the government get little or nothing from such an arrangement. Only the criminals themselves benefit.
THE TRUTH is, the main reason we have these regulatory agencies is not to prohibit the use of black-and-white-collar crimes from being subject to prosecution by the criminal justice system.
To the Editor·
Eric Zuesse, a consumer activist, is attempting to found a center for victim-oriented justice.
In response to the repeated pleas for in justice by KU custodians, the administration has relied on pseudo-legalism, misleading statistics, regression of both employment and education, predictable obfuscations of "inflatable bureaucracy. Beneath the confusion, the basic issue is quite simple. KU payment to employees will be higher than to efficiency but rather to the reduction of the labor force. AMS absorbs the "regular and overtime pay . . . longevity and merit increases, vacation, sick and holiday pay" because custodians it can remove from the payroll.
Certainly this is a blatant inducement for AMTS to force the termination and/or transfer of those employees most vulnerable to abuse, but we have in our possession abundant testimony that this has indeed been the case. From a moral point of view, we find such an apprehension as strong as any great university. From a public policy and a legal point of view, we find it in violation of the purposes and protections of the african continent program, the African Civil Act, the Kenya Civil Act and the Public Employee Relations Act. From an economic point of view, we find it inexplicable giveaway of large sums of money to money in a multinational corporation.
From a service efficiency point of view, we find it producing a denomination of our custodians and a reduction in the quality of custodial services. From a public administrative point of view, we find it an important step towards ensuring date to manage public employees and a dangerous precedent for the intrusion of the private-profit-oriented sector into the internal affairs of the public-service-oriented sector. It is not unreasonable to suggest that government staff should be given firm could sell to KU the services of "more efficient" educators and support staff.
THE MANY documented instances of KU administrative collusion with AMS in the harassment of the Custodian Action Committee, the perception of its leaders and the authority of the department in the process in "discippling" the labor force is final testimony to the bankruptcy of KU's relationship with AMS. We feel that the only way to maintain such a common sense is to sever this relationship.
We regret that despite our many requests, the administration has refused to meet with our committee of faculty, students and community members. That the issue then led to an agreement to refusal. The administration contends that because it has a contract with a campus trade union it neither can meet with us, nor release us to or the press. Certain data issued by the department support payment and expenditure of Kansas taxas' money. No rational person will accept the argument that it is somehow illegal for the public to raise public policy issues with the administration of a public corporation to receive public data from that administration.
THEAT THE administration now sheds itself behind a trade union is hardy a savory situation in employee-employer relations. The president said that less than 5 percent of the custodians are members of this union, despite the fact that the local union has voiced no objection to their membership. KU and despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the custodians are raising complaints on their own initiative, independently and in defense of the union. The administration then asked the custodians join the union before the administration can even entertain their complaint. The administration said that we faculty would be community members also join this laborer's
union before the administration will meet with us?
In the final analysis, our concerns are the question of mutual responsibility. The concept of a University community, comprising differentiated endeavors, yet united in common purpose, was being muticated by the AMS contract. The least among us, the most dependent, the poorest of the poor, are being treated in a fashion that would be met with outrage if applied to other sectors of our University. If we had no such betrayal that is most human in use,
Once again, we respectfully request that the administration meet with our group of faculty students and community groups. To avoid reinstatement, we conclude that the administration is unequal to the normal channels of discourse and will have to be resolved in other arenas.
Norman Forer
Associate professor of social welfare on behalf of the KU Custodian Support Group.
Support Group
Scholarship hall lot needs to be policed To the Failure
In the aftermath of the parking problems on Oct. 27 in the Alumni Plaza parking lot, Mr. Kearney discussed his Nov. 5 letter to the Kansai University scholarship halls attempted to avoid future problems by taking our complaints to KU Parking Services. Jim was informed that Doyle, resident director of Stephen Hall, spoke to Dome Kearns, director of KU Parking Services. Jim was informed that the parking problem could be to the last before home football games. However, he was told that Parking Services would supply barricades that volunteers could install that parking halls could man at the entrances to the lot.
Since employees of the parking service who live in the scholarship halls had in the past insisted on ticketing cars in the Wheel's parking lot, Kip Cabin, All Scholarship Hall Council president, went to talk to Keenan. He said that because the volunteers should be furnished with walkie-talkies so they could keep in touch with the staff and the community. Since no one felt that it was his duty to volunteer for possibly dangerous and unskilled work, the barricades were not utilized.
Shortly before noon last Saturday, a count was taken and there were 35 cars without parking permits in the Alumni Place parking lot. This lot is designed to hold 73 cars. In the parking lot, in fire lanes, double parked and blocked the cars of permit holders. Although another count was not made, the number of cars parked illegally continued to increase, and each time a school hall resident moved his car, it was immediately occupied by a non-permit holder.
This situation persisted until about 5:30 p.m. when the police kicked the ticking. The most noticeable result of this action was that permit holders who were forced to park illegally are now expected to pay a fine.
I fail to see how students who pay $24 for a parking permit can be expected to: 1) take a ride in a vehicle up with having their parking lot become a playground for drunks, 3) pay huge fines when they cannot find a legal parking spot on a street, or 4) receive Services. The only acceptable solution to this problem is the control of access to the lot by Parking Services employees on game day.
Jim West
Stephenson Hall president
Eureka senior
Oil companies act from selfish interests To the Editor:
Why is it everytime David Presen puns an editorial the reader feels as though he has reviewed the latest Exxon public nature or some Heagan for President Dyer? Why does the company shows system works" and "Exxon's 119 percent profits are necessarily high" illuminate the type of thinking that permeates the business world today. The fact that they can deny the existence of social problems may real improve extremely difficult.
In the "BBQ" editorial, Preston states without qualification, "The free enterprise system works." No mention is made to the use of technology; it is implied to institute because of the disastrous abuses that have characterized our past. Further, Preston defends the use of technology in a possible social mobility. How socially mobile are the majority of urban blacks? How many are at the worst of the American educational facilities, the children can hardly be expected to become members of the Chamber of Commerce, no matter how hard they are willing to work.
On Nov. 2, Preston defended oil company profits. Any possible ability was shattered by the statement, "The oil companies would love to see new, alternative sources of energy," and that foreign oil, or foreign oil, it does not take many brain cells to understand that this is a semantic game. These companies will gladly welcome coal and nuclear expansion because they are in demand from consumers and sore to imagine the oil companies cutting their own threats in the move to advance solar power.
One other error must be mentioned. In the "profits" article, Preston claims that managers' salaries are fixed and the profits earned by them are rewarded towards bonuses to top level personnel on the basis of profits. But these slights are easy to make when one puts on mind before writing another editorial in magazine dealing with the status quo and corporate America.
Mark Steiner
Mark Steiner Bartlesville, Okla., senior
Congratulations, KU from K-State officer
To the Editor:
As per my agreement with your student counselor, you are welcome to like to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate the University of Kansas football team, students and fans on their success.
I am certain that Saturday's game will go down as one of the most exciting in the history of the series. It was fitting that the winner was not decided until the final play. We K-States are still very proud of our success and are excited about its chances during the rest of the season.
Once again, I compliment you on your victory. Good luck against Oklahoma. Wait until next year!
Greg L. Musil
Student body president
Kansas State University