Page 4 University Daily Kansan, August 26, 1980
Opinion
Classifieds need voice
The Kansas Board of Regents brushed aside KU's classified employees when it appointed a 12-member search committee to find a new chancellor at the University of Kansas.
In all, KU has about 1,500 classified employees. They hold jobs ranging anywhere from a vertebrate zoologist to a map library associate. The employees' skills constitute an important part of this University.
The search committee, which was formed in June after then-Chancellor Archie R. Dykes announced he would resign on Aug. 15, includes student, faculty and alumni representatives. But classified employee representation is nowhere to be found on the committee.
Moreover, classified employees have a vital interest in the selection of a new chancellor, just as the rest of the University community does. A new chancellor obviously will make decisions that directly affect classified employees.
Perhaps the Board of Regents is insensitive to the influence of classified employees at KU. Unlike other Regents schools, KU has a Classified Senate to
represent its classified employees. Although the Senate is not officially recognized by the University, it is the only body of its kind in the state.
Since the Senate was formed last winter, classified employees have had a stronger voice in University matters. Apparently the Regents did not take this into consideration when they selected the members of the search committee.
But in the meantime, the Classified Senate is not going to stand idly by. A member of the Senate has requested help from the American Civil Liberties Union on the grounds that the civil rights of classified employees have been violated.
Fortunately, it is not at all too late for the Regents to appoint a classified employee representative. The selection process is only in its infant stages and won't be completed until about the end of the school year.
A needless controversy will be avoided if the Regents add a classified employee to the search committee. The addition would be in the best interests of the University community, unless those who were so enthusiastic about the new Senate have suddenly changed their minds.
The drive for gay rights took two giant steps backward last week.
A Navy administrative discharge board in Long Beach, Calif., voted in separate hearings to recommend that two women sailors on the USS Norton Sound be discharged under honorable terms. The court gulley of homosexual sexual—a no-no in the Navy, which openly forbids homosexuality.
It's right here in the cold type of the service regulation machine—no gays allowed. The Army
BLAKE
GUMPRECHT
and Air Force have similar regulations. But perhaps the most startling information to surface as a result of the sudden controversy over DNA testing in relationships is discharges for homosexuality are nothing new.
STATISTICS RELEASED last week by the Navy show that in 1787 alone, 82 male sailors received discharges because of homosexuality. Of these sailors, 52 were sailors were discharged for the same reason.
It's something of a modern version of the Salem witch hunts.
In all, 24 of 58 women sailors on board were investigated. Eight of those eventually were charged. Two have been judged innocent, while four still await trial.
The Norton Sound case has attracted nationwide attention because of the large number of sailors involved and that the sailors were all women.
The remaining bearings are expected to begin with water cooling, and returns to its home port in Port Huenxe, Calif.
THE NAVY, in justifying the discharges of Fireman Recruit Wendi Williams and Seaman
Alicia Harris, contended that homosexual contacts could compromise the ship's mission.
"The presence of a homosexual in a military environment seriously impairs combat readiness, efficiency, security and morale," a California said when the charges were originally filed.
A statement like that, without explanation, is ludicrous. Navy officials refuse to provide evidence that a person's sexual preference is reflected in one's on-the-job performance or that of others. I've yet to see a study that indicates a ship's sexual preference, or a ship, pays a course or even swaps a deck.
TODAY'S MILITARY appears to have a view of homosexuality much like the view the military of 100 years ago might have had. The Navy, it seems, pictures homosexuals as side-show freaks who think of nothing but sex and are likely to make passes at their fellow workers. A typical gay person acts no differently on the job than a person the Navys views as "normal."
The Norton Sound hearings repeatedly have featured witnesses who have testified to the on-the-job ability of the accused lesbians. The administrative discharge board, meanwhile, doesn't appear to give a completely fair chance to the accused.
THE QUSI-JUDICIAL tribunal, which is made up exclusive of Navy personnel, allows unsworn testimony and many of the usual rules of evidence collection do not apply. A guilty witness only has a simple majority vote of the board, instead of the unanimous decision that courts require.
But the real issue remains
A person's sexual habits simply aren't the business of the Navy unless those habities are reflected in the sailor's performance or the performance of others.
As long as a sailor or anyone else for that matter—does the job required, it shouldn't matter whether they are homosexual, male or sexual or enjoy whips and chains on Saturday night.
Enrollment fees go to strange places
While standing in line at enrollment last week, I heard an upset student expressing concern that he was getting ripped off because it was costing him $355.60 to enroll. He thought it should only cost $280 and was trying to get an explanation of the apparent discreancy.
He was answered with blank stares, shrugged shoulders and an admonition to think God that he wasn't enrolling in a private university, which would cost him ten times as much to enroll.
So, sufficiently chastised, the student asked him to pay his fees and forget about the extra 40-50 bu.
Unfortunately, at the time neither I nor anyone else in the enrollment line had picked up the latest copy of the Revenue Code of the Student Senate of the University of Kansas which, it claims, "makes information concerning student campus revenue fees readily accessible."
AFTER GOING TO great lengths, I managed to obtain a copy of the revenue code after I, too, became curious where my money at enrollment was going.
A full-time student does, in fact, pay only $280 in what is oddly termed an incidental fee. The extra $105.60 that the student was upset about is for student fees that support projects that probably only a few students realize they help finance.
I found that the largest part of the $105.60 that I paid along with the irate student is for a health education fee. For only $46 I help provide for a student health center which is, as the revenue code states, "absolutely necessary for the safety, health and welfare of the student body." The $7 student health facility fee is for Watkins Student Health Center and it completes my contribution to KU's low-budget form of socialized medicine.
The student union is the second most expensive thing I support with student fees. For a total of
IT IS COMFORTING to know that for only $53 a year I have the privilege of dragging my sick body to Wattles Hospital, waiting two or three hours in the lobby and having a 50-50 chance of receiving a proper diagnosis from a doctor who may or may not speak intelligible English.
BRETT CONLEY
THE ONLY OTHER building that fees support is Wescoe Hall, which the $4.50 humanities building fee is for a lot of people who criticized Wescoe and many students probably will be able to pay. We are helping to pay for it. But $4.50 is little to pay for a safe place to go in case of nuclear attack.
$25.50, I help pay for the original union building, the construction of the north annex and the south addition and the Satellite Union. I can't really complain about the fees for the Student Union, but the revenue code could become very confusing if someone decided to build an annex or addition to the Satellite Union. Or, even worse, if he decided to put another satellite union into orbit.
have the privilege of watching other people ride them.
My $1.35 is helping support both the Iranian Student Association and Armnest International. Perhaps if I joined both I could help solve the hostage problem.
Of all the fees levied on me, I think there is little doubt that the $11.10 student activity fee provides the most for the least amount of money. It helps support the University Daily Kansan, the University Theatre, the University Concert Series, the Chamber Music Series and the KU bands.
A TOTAL OF $1.35 of the student activity fee is allocated by the Student Senate to about 60 organizations. For less than the price of a meal at McDonald's, I help sponsor what is perhaps the most diversified group of special interest organizations anywhere
Women in Communications and Blacks in Communication also are supported by my $1.35. That leaves me wondering which organization a black woman in communications would join.
So, I think the student who was upset about the extra money he had to pay at enrollment should now take a long look at what he is paying for and calm down a little.
I do find myself questioning the legitimacy of organizations such as the Gung Fu Club, Men's Coalition and the KU Frisbee Club. But I figure that for $1.35 I can't gripe too much.
The University Daily KANSAN
For only $105.60 he has a chance of getting an aiment cured at Watkins Hospital and he can use the Student Union, including the annex, addition and satellite, watch the buses go by, avoid a nuclear attack and even become a Gung Fu expert.
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The tree that seems most unfair is the $$ student transportation fee, I like the majority of students, don't ride the buses. In fact, I never have ridden a bus at KU. Nevertheless, for $1
Editor Carol Belet
Business Manager
Elaine Strahler
Personal income tax indexing is answer to inflation problem
August is hardly the month to think about paying income taxes, but it is as good a month as any to think about the effects of inflation on incomes. It is, however, supposedly no increase in inflation last month.
The inflation rate failed to jump in July for the first time in 13 years. But government
BY EARNING MORE money, workers will nudge themselves into higher tax brackets, which means they will have to pay more taxes. So, although the worker will be earning more in wages or salaries, he will be paying more of it because of the federal government. By giving us trouble paying more money, the worker also has agreed to pay more of his money to the government.
Because of the increasing prices of products, workers will need more money to buy products at the end of the year than the money required to buy the same products now. More money usually is obtained by negotiated or existing contracts, by changing jobs or by taking a second job.
Fortunately, there is a way to stop this money from going down the congressional drain. Unfortunately Congress has not stumbled across it vet.
economists still predict double-digit inflation for the year.
IF INDEXING were implemented, the tax brackets would be adjusted annually according to the previous year's inflation rate. This would allow workers to pay the same percentages of their incomes to the government even though they would be earning more total dollars.
The solution is called tax indexing. It is a relatively painless idea, which together with periodic tax cuts, could help a taxpayer at least to find his checkbook amid his mountain of bills.
Under the Internal Revenue Code, tax brackets are arranged so that the government gets 14 to 70 percent of workers' income depending on income. But with tax indexing, the
brackets would be adjusted so that workers would not be penalized merely because prices were higher.
There is a clear reason why Congress has not adopted tax indexing. Because fewer tax dollars would be paid, Congress would have to put the federal budget into a deeper deficit.
TAX INDEXING WOULD do more than relieve the taxpayer from a greater tax burden. It also would force congressmen to pay more than lip service to a balanced budget. Eventually waste should be forced to choose which waste to cut from the budget and risk caregiving an interest group.
There are other kinds of indexing systems, such as corporate tax indexing and indexing of a person's annual income. But corporate tax indexing would make lawyers and accountants title these systems not be sought as much. These two systems would be handled in the taxpayers' problems of handling inflation.
But personal income tax indexing is a real solution to the problem that vexes the average taxpayer. The answer is straightforward.
By enacting the system, the Treasury Department could use the Consumer Price Index, which is used to measure inflation. The department would adjust the tax brackets as needed each year before tax instruction books were delivered to taxnavers.
THE UNCERTAINTY of not knowing how much tax would be paid would be offset by the government's inability to reap profits from inflation. Of course, if there were no inflation during the preceding year, the tax brackets would not be chanched.
In the past two decades, Congress has passed a sufficient number of tax cuts to offset the effects of inflation. But the cuts were made to stimulate the economy to ease the effects of inflation on taxpayers.
Now that inflation has broken free from conventional economic controls, economists fear that growth will be slowed.
Inflation, and the increased wages that come with it, have forced people to pay higher rates of taxes on their incomes. Tax indexing is not the only answer to inflation, but it would prevent people from having to pay an unfair share of their incomes to the government.