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University Daily Kansan, August 25, 1980
Opinion
KU ostracizes teacher
The University of Kansas owes Clarence Dillinham an explanation.
Dillingham, an instructor in social welfare who made a controversial trip to Iran last December, has been dumped by the University. Although it is no secret that Dillingham's trip to Iran infuriated the KU administration, officials at the School of Social Welfare maintain that Dillingham wasn't released for "political reasons."
Without much of an explanation, officials said Dillingham was "simply not rehired." This "simple" treatment, however, seems unfair to a man who undoubtedly took a significant pay cut to fill a vacant teaching position in the School of Social Welfare.
DILLINGHAM CERTAINLY is no stranger to KU. He served in the office of Affirmative Action at KU for four years, including a stint as acting director. Last year, he left his position to become an instructor in social welfare for an obviously smaller paycheck. It is hard to believe that Dillingham would have accepted such a cut if he had not received at least some kind of assurance of being rehired.
For too long, KU has been unsuccessful in retaining minority faculty members. Dillingham is black, and has a significant amount of experience at the University of Kansas.
The circumstances surrounding Dillingham's appointment also indicate that School of Social Welfare officials thought highly of him. Dillingham filled in while an open search was being conducted for an associate dean of the school. Dillingham's tenure at the office of Affirmative Action must have impressed some people.
BUT DILLINGHAM has been stranded without a job at the University of Kansas. He is entitled to an explanation, especially given the nebulous circumstances of his release.
During this entire episode, it appears that the University has acted as a true-to-life version of the Harper Valley P.T.A. Dillingham's views on Iran and his subsequent actions shocked KU officials, who place the University's public image almost as the ton priority.
As it turned out, Dillingham became an outcast at a University where top officials are sensitive to any bad publicity. However, his release could tarnish KU's public image more than his trip to Iran.
If a University places the price of its public image above its commitment to retain minority instructors—highly qualified minority instructors, no less—then more than just its public image could be in grave danger.
Reagan's Vietnam remarks are justified by 'noble cause'
The only certainties of the past eight years are the victories and controversial remarks by Ronald Reagan.
Reagan's latest remark, that the United States' involvement in Vietnam was a "noble cause," has attracted the most attention. Front-page coverage has guaranteed that Reagan's comment would not pass unattacked. Indeed, the press seems to wait for such remarks as it waited for Gerald Ford to trip and fall down.
if die-hard Reagan opponents would stop screaming long enough to think, they might
BILL
MENEZES
realize that the sentiment he expressed was not so drastically different from their own.
REAGAN MADE his remark, along with several others that received much less significant attention, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention last Monday in Chicago. Calling for a mass mobilization, the veteran said Americans had lived with a "Vietnam syndrome" for too long, giving way to guilt feelings about the American involvement.
we ushonor the memory of 50,000 young Americans who died in that cause if we give way to feelings of guilt as if we were doing something wrong.agan said. "Ouraus was in truth a noble cause."
And it was. But before even attempting to interpret these remarks, however, the cause itself should not be confused with the actions that actually took place. It would be ridiculous to think that Reagan considers the behavior of the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations in dealing with the Vietnam conflict "noble."
THE EXECUTION of the war was in no way noble, either at home or in Vietnam. The clandestine troop buildups, the stream of falsified information flowing steadily from the enemy into the enemy's budgets that swelled in defiance of the economy tell the story. The draft and all of its
inequities, the suppression of war protesters, and the futile bombing of Vietnamese civilian population centers could not possibly be considered noble.
Despite all this, the cause itself was justified. Even the flag burners might temper their criticism if they thought about the cause's underlying principles.
Reagan justified the cause by putting it in basic terms. Vietnam, a small, newly independent country, needed assistance to equip armed advances of its totalitarian neighbor.
TRUST WHO cry loudest that the United States had no business in the affairs of another country across the ocean are probably the same crowd who now demand that this country use its power against South Africa to abolish the apartheid government there. In both of these cases, the issue had been the human rights of the natives. Unfortunately, certain factions seem to think that protecting the rights of people who have lived under a dictatorship for a hundred years is more important than preventing a new dictatorship from beginning. If one cause is valid then so is the other.
Downgrading the reasons Reagan said this country was fighting for in Vietnam makes the futility of the exercise burn worse in the country's mind. Reagan said the memories of you were so bitter that he dishoured if the nation felt guilty about what it had done. And he was right. Would the same attitude about the effort have prevailed but it been successful?
THE WAR accomplished little more than wasted lives, wasted money, a wasted economy, far-reaching rifts in American society and a three-year delay in the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam. But the war could have been prevented. Nothing can change that, and downgrading the cause for which they were sent only makes the futility of their deaths sadder.
Causes and actual actions are sometimes worlds apart. Reagan's remark illustrates this. Although his unqualified support of the entire war effort will make many of his policies more valuable, they still lack sight of the underlying cause. Maybe a better issue for the press to harp on, instead of Reagan's remarks, would be the actions of President Carter.
Roommate dispels elderly myths
I am adding my lines to the story of 85-year-old Pearl Bettis because she is alive, and not in spite of it. Pearl would always shake her head at me, and I think we were for the living—so, I think, are tributes.
This tribute is frailer than the new far away friendship. More than 700 miles away from a small Minnesota town where Pearl lives. I have never been to this place, but it will perhaps set the example Pearl set for me.
Pearl was, for two months, my landlady and my roommate—with the seniority of a grandparent and the status of a stranger. If she later proved to be a confidante and a companion, she was at first an unfamiliar address in Milaca, Mimn., a town I had only seen on the map.
When I moved in, Pearl and I shared a bathroom, a kitchen sink, and, at first, more than that.
TO ME, 85 was terrifyingly old. I watched Pearl fearfully at first, convinced that anyone over 85 was living on borrowed time. When it became increasingly apparent that my roommate's life was in no immediate danger, I exchanged a gift for quagmire for 89-year-olds to govern our relationship.
After checking for signs of senility, I settled into easy expectations of a sober summer for Pearl, punctured perhaps by a number of aches, naps and visits to the doctor. After all, it was reasonable to expect an 85-year-old would live out for eternity rather than entertainment.
My theory on Old Age was severely tried the day Pearl declined a movie invitation on the grounds that she hadn't washed her hair and that it looked terrible. The poverty of her excuse surprised me. After all, no self-respecting citizen over 80 ever seriously looked in the mirror.
In a society that brushes "oldness" on to its aged. Pearl was disconcertingly young.
"People have got to start realizing that I'm an old lady," she told me confidently one day. But the bubbling laugh and sneaking smile always betrayed her wrinkles.
righteously, secure in the knowledge that nobody believed her.
PEARL WAS unwilling to declare old age and bow out of the rough and tumble of life. The wrinkles, the aged cheerfulness and ladylike demeanor concealed a core of solid stubbornness that signaled independence. Pearl would never, in her youth, climb stairs just as quickly as the younger generation. Instead, Pearly said testily, she kept a slower pace because it suited her.
She gave only passing deference to her old age. "I know I should give the house up; an old lady should see me."
She wrapped herself in independence as securely and as needlessly as any two-year-old. After all, she must live with a language that prelabs and patronizes its old people.
If she makes a mistake, she is presumed to be forgetful; a younger person is preoccupied. If she needs a map she is feeble; a young person is ill; the map where as a younger person is merely eccentric.
BUT THE GENERATION gap is still a reality, as Pearl and I discovered. Pearl regularly
SUSAN SCHOENMAKER
bereated me for my cut-offs, which she disdainfully referred to as "overalls" in the lingo of her younger years. I privately carried with her the little shoes she wore, low-heeled shoes would be better off in a museum.
Pearl had fought for the women's vote in high school, but she thought today's women wanted too much equality. We argued. She said I had sloppy handwriting and that crossing "sevens" was endangering the capital letter "F". We argued. She thought family life and the Methodists were slipping. We argued, as a slipshod respect for one another grew.
THE NATIONAL Republican convention, summer night debates, rhubarb jam and ice cream began to pave a shaky mutuality. I benevolently listened to Pearl's analysis of the
convention, as she scolded commentator Harry Reasoner for his divorce, contended Ronald Reagan was too old for presidential politics and scrutinized the behavior of candidates" wives. She tolerated my more candidate-centered interests during the convention telecasts.
We discovered a mutual interest in making rubarb juice, eating vanilla ice cream cones and soliciting dinner invitations. We weren't in favor of calories, raising the 55 m.p.h. speed limit or building subsidized housing for the elderly in downtown Milaca.
We have both lived in Kansas—she was born on a Kansas homeestead in 1895; I moved to Oklahoma.
If our relationship soon acquired the spit and polish of agreement, its trust tie was still the loneliness that first inspired confidence. We were both alone because of a coincidence of age and small towns, together because of a collision of needs and jobs.
WE PRIDED ourselves on an understanding that ran beneath the patina of friendship. It was an understanding that began one afternoon when, overcome with sympathy for myself, I began to sob that there was nobody my age in Milaca.
"You don't have anyone your age here," repeated Pearl, self-interest overriding any vestiges of sympathy. "What about me? I haven't got any body my age either."
Her voice hinted at humor, but the loneliness was unmistakable. I wiped my tears, ashamed in the first shock of understanding. I, at least, could leave.
We smiled onely at each other and at fate. Twenty-wry and eighty-five suddenly were just two numbers that really didn't say anything about being human. Nothing at all.
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