4
Tuesday, February 25, 1975
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the
opinions of the writers.
4 comics bow out
We were treated to a real show last week when the Watergate Four were sentenced. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Mardian and their attorneys were nearly as funny as the Marx Brothers.
robert Mardian, like Zeppo Marx,
played the straight man. Mardian's
sentence, 10 months to three years,
was the lightest of the four, fitting
for the fourth banana. His wife was
in the courtroom with him. With her
help, he managed to keep a straight
face during the sentencing
procedures, despite the hilarity of
his compatriots' acts.
H. R. Haldeman took Harpo Marx' role he stayed stalled. But through an interpreter of sorts, his attorney, John J. Wilson, Haldeman told Judge J. Sirice that he wasn't made fault for his Watergate actions.
"Whatever Bob Haldeman did, he did not for himself but for the President of the United States," Wilson told Sirica.
It was Wilson's best performance since he uttered a racial slur about Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, during the Watergate hearings.
John Mitchell rolled off the best one-liner of the day, in the true style of Groucho Marx. Mitchell told newsmen after the sentencing that he had an optimistic view of his execution of 30 months to eight years.
"It could have been a hell of a lot worse," he said. "He could have sentenced me to spend the rest of my life with Martha Mitchell."
Ah, if only old "Law and Order Mitchell" could have had a dark moustache and a cigar . . .
But the big star of the show was John Ehrlichman. He did a pretty fair impersonation of Chico Marx. Chico, you'll remember, usually played an ethnic hero, loved Chico's schtik Ehrlichman told the judge he wanted to help Pueblo Indians rather than serve his sentence in jail.
Then Ehrlichman's attorney told Judge Sirica that Sirica had an opportunity to lead the way in a new judicial practice of sentencing felons to public service rather than to prison.
Ehrlichman's act started with pious penitence, "I have been found to be a perjurer, and no reversal on appeal, uncleane the stigma of verdicts."
Ehrlichman's attorney then said Ehrlichman wanted to use his background as a land-use lawyer to help the people of eight Indian pueblos in a very remote area of northern New Mexico.
Apparently, Judge Sirica has little sense of humor. The Four Watergate Brothers' act, though unprairiously funny, left Sirica unsmilling. He turned down Ehrlichman's request and, barring a reversal of Sirica's actions, he proceeded to the case, the Watergate Four are headed for prison.
Maybe those New Mexico Indians are lucky. Remember what happened to Ehrlichman's last employer. —Craig Stock
Women shirk ERA
One would think that the worst thing a man could say to a woman would be that she was an excellent argument against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Unfortunately, that isn't the case.
Many women don't want to see the
numerous reasons they have a number of
different reasons.
Poor Debra Barnes Miles, a former Miss America who now is a Eudora housewife, for example, is worried that if the ERA passes, her lawyer will have to appeal the opinion, men should be responsible for fighting all future wars.
Mrs. Miles doesn't think she should have to do anything. After all, it's easier to walk around in a swimming room than someone else make decisions for her.
Perhaps that is the problem with the ERA. Too many women don't want the responsibility that goes with being treated as a man's equal.
It's so easy to sit at home and let
someone else worry about the world's problems. If something goes wrong, it can always be blamed on someone or that good old scapegoat, society.
Who cares if there is a war? Why
is depression? Blame it on
someone else.
Betty Ford deserves much praise.
She wants the responsibilities of a man and is doing something about it.
Mrs. Ford speaks her mind. She complains about what her time complaining about what other people are not doing.
How refreshing she is. What a rarity. A person who wants responsibility instead of avoiding it. Even if the ERA passes, the Debra Barnes Milesess of this country (men who work with shirk responsibility. And, frankly, who needs them. They need only remember that when something goes wrong, it isn't their fault. After all, they did nothing—nothing at all.
—Kenn Louden
We have many judges in this society, and we give most of them godlike powers for the simple reason that we frequently require them to be almost as wise as God.
only thing you see is reverse discrimination that temporarily robs you of your job and the well-being of your family.
Recession strains justice
In any society, there arise many circumstances in which the true path of wisdom and justice is difficult to discern. Never is this truer than in a society where grim hardships
ON THE OTHER HAND, there is this black guy or this woman who has struggled for 300 years to get a decent job in your industry. Neither could really do it by demonstrating merit, for
And you are enraged!
By Carl Rowan
Copyright 1975 Field Enterprises, Inc.
arise and people are asked to make fair sacrifices.
WE AMERICANS have a classic case of justice colliding with itself as powerful but conflicting concepts of what is just and decent rush headlong into each other.
You are white. You have worked for Jersey Central and you have paid your union dues you have paid your union dues that you you're being laid off because the company cannot fire the women, the blacks, the Puerto Ricans who were hired six months ago under pressure from federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Now, you probably got your job and your seniority under circumstance or of obvious reason in which whiteness got you advantages no woman or black could have gotten with a slotgun. But that discrimination, you have forgotten 15 years later. The
merit is what the people in majority control decide it is. So it took a federal judge or a federal examiner or a state fair employment practices officer to open the door by ordering an action program to add blacks and women to the payroll.
Then, boom. The economy goes to hell, and the company is overwhelmed. Many pany says to the women and the blacks, "You were the last hired, so under our union seniority agreement, you must be a member."
Women and minorities are furious. They realize that they are trapped in the most vicious of circles. Three hundred years of discrimination has come back to haunt them. They couldn't get any seniority because you didn't ask them, and now, because they don't have seniority, no one will let them keen jobs.
How does a decent society reconcile these different views of fairness and justice? Solomon never had a tougher challenge. History tells us, however, that most societies have always resolved such issues in favor of the majority group, of people most like the judge, but of people most decision, in favor of the people who set the prevailing political mood.
AND THEY ARE OUTRAGED!
THE CASE TM referring to involves the Jersey Central Power & Light Co. It had a collective bargaining agreement with international Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that in case of layoffs, seniority would prevail. That is, last hired, first fired. Jersey Center also had the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to raise the percentage of women and minority employees. Things went okay until the economic crunch forested Jersey Central to 40 per cent of its 3,850 workers.
U. S. District Judge Vincent P. Buono put justice first. He ordered the company to lay people off in a way that wouldn't put a disproportionate burden on women and minorities. Then he directed Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that "the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement must govern."
This issue surely will go the Supreme Court.
THE CASE COULD be rendered indisputable if the unions would say, as Congress finally seems to be saying, that seniority must never be an absolute claim to anything. But the unions fear that greedy employers would rush to fire or
lay off older, higher-paid workers in favor of young, lowpaid employees.
Meanwhile, women and minorities figure the companies that have discriminated for so long will gladly sign a seniority deal with some union as a way of thwarting efforts to impose nondiscriminatory hiring policies.
I know which way wisdom
lies. It is to give sexual, racial and ethnic justice precedence over seniority. That is the only way to break a circle that is not only vicious but also destructive everything this nation stands for.
But it may be that we do not have enough judges in the right places to make that kind of decree.
I'M NOT SURE HOW TO TELL YOU THIS...
BUT I'VE JUST LEARN LAID OFF!
Readers respond
To the Editor:
AFTER ALL OTHER issues regarding fiscal, legal and academic problems have been thoroughly researched by the appropriate committees, it is curious that we now must return once again to our profession, emotionally charged issue of the possible sectarian nature of the School of Religion. We agree with David Katzman, associate professor of history, that in the area of
News reports, including the one in the Feb. 19 Kansan, about the open forum held after last Tuesday's College Assembly, have stressed the question of whether the college departmentalization within the College of the Kansas School of Religion.
religious studies a balanced teaching approach should be exercised. We have been concerned this for the past 50 years.
Charges of sectarianism stir emotions
TO SUGGEST, HOWEVER, that this isn't being done is to challenge the integrity of the present faculty and program of the School of Religion. How does one respond to such a request from anyone directly acquainted with the School of Religion, its present faculty and course offerings, a response is most likely unnecessary. But there are many people who still will simply assume that any type of religious studies program will be sectarian, espousing a particular research has been carried on within this discipline for a longer time than in any other academic field.
HOW CAN ONE respond to the charge of sectarianism, by loading? No direct accusation of sectarianism has ever been made, much less sustained, against us. Only any of its faculty.
OF COURSE. A retreat can be made from teaching approach to the fact that the church teaches about the churches of Kansas have endowed the teaching chairs in the School of Religion. But it has never been alleged that such donors have in any way exercised exercise control over what is taught in the classroom. Will ever speak of the good will of the Protestant, Catholic and Christian schools in Kansas funding on their own an academically oriented program accredited by that institution? Must those religious organizations not have an interest in Kansas when they have taken ever step possible to avoid narrow parochialism and self-interest?
HOW CAN ONE respond to the objection against the breadth of the School's
HOW SHOULD ONE respond? Perhaps no response is necessary or productive any longer. The School of Religion has opened itself up to the most intensive scrutiny of the University community, offering its records and reports to every appropriate committee, appointing the University the College and attempting to cooperate with every request made by such committees.
curriculum when the University has offered no funding at all to insure the desired breadth? How can one respond about the quality and competence of its faculty when for the past eight years the University has offered a Master of Arts degree through the School of Religion? Should students be taught the Instruction Survey of the past few semesters be worn on our labels?
Hook critical
Any further emotionally laden objections can only be seen as acts of desperation. Richard L. Jeske
The "mushy headed pseudolibers" (Congressman O'Hara, Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and the undersigned) whom Carl Rowe abuses in his column in the Feb. 6 Kansan have been in charge against racial discrimination long before the Executive Orders outlawed it in federally supported institutions.
In recent years, a movement
DESPIE ROWAN'S irresponsible assertions, they have welcomed government action against violators when their guilt has been established. They have even suggested ways of strengthening the guideline for such actions that "numerical goals and time tables," which are logically equivalent to quotas, are
Assistant Professor of Religion
To the Editor:
More recently, Gov. Robert F. Bennett issued an executive order to remove the state treasurer and insurance company boss Gov. Bennett's order has stirred tormential winds among Kansas
toward a shorter ballot in Kansas has achieved some success. In last year's elections, for example, Kansans voted to remove the state printer from the ballot.
Kansas moves toward shorter ballot
Democrats, who accuse him of a "power grab."
Gov. Bennett's executive order certainly has the immediate appearance of partisan politics at its dirtiest. However, if one views Gov. Bennett's order from the perspective of
By STEVEN LEWIS Contributing Writer
When Kansan went to the polls a few years ago, they expected to elect nine separate state officials.
The Democrats are excited about the governor's order because the new Kansas law requires Joan Finney, is a Democrat.
Obviously, few voters were knowledgeable about most of the candidates they were called upon to judge. Nevertheless, a, state office management kept a multitude of state offices before the voters.
Recent trends in Kansas government have been toward fewer elective offices and more power for the governor. These changes bipartisan support until Gov. Bennett's recent executive order.
the past six years, it seems far less sinister.
For example, a bipartisan "Citizens" committee on Constitutional Revision' recommends that the government establish constitutional office officials.
be limited to the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
Kansas voters approved these recommendations in 1972, and the era of the weak executive in Kansas seemed to be coming to
Former Gov. Robert B.
Docking made much use of his
new reorganization powers.
Interestingly, one of Gov.
Docking's executive orders was
an attempt to make the office of
treasurer appointive instead of elective. A Republican was state treasurer at the time, and a Republican-dominated legislature rejected Docking's order.
We now have a Republican governor, a Democrat treasurer and another executive order. The outcome in the legislature should be interesting.
dropped. They have uphold a single standard of merit for all, and protested only crass violations of the Executive order whether it favors or opposes minority groups or women.
IN ONE BREATH Rowan professes to be opposed to all quotas. In another he says he won't defend a "rigid quota system" in order to system is the worst of all forms of discrimination because it compounds the injustices to individuals. In one sentence he jobs to minorities and women in proportion to their numbers in the population. In another sentence he wants jobs distributed "to a point where it reasonably 'representative'."
But if we are selecting on the basis of qualifications, would he urge that the numbers of blacks and whites on our basketball and baseball teams should be "reasonably representative" of their proportion in the general population, not "reasonably not." Where merit is the criterion, proportions are irrelevant. "Reasonably representative" is another semantic evasion for quotas.
ROWAN EVEN SUGGESTS that qualifications "have always been a subjective thing." But if so, how can Rowan validly claim in any specific case that blacks have
Ii
I AM CONFIDENT that when his blood cools and he makes the effort, he will realize that the inferences that may be justified in concluding that discrimination exists in the Alabama Highway Patrol or in some industrial plants, where almost all people have specialized skills, not automatically be applied to higher education where the required specialized skills are of a different order.
The only charitable interpretation of the Rowan's illogic is that he is thinking with his viscera. He admits that his "blood surges to a fast boll" but we don't think with our blood.
been the victims of discrimination? Some qualifications, of course, may be unfair or unrelated to the job offered. Women who establish better ones and to apply them impartially. HWE has admitted that in many instances illegal, discriminatory hiring of women occurred. Women who occurred. Rowan claims this is "impossible" because unemployment is greater among blacks than whites. This is absurd. It is like arguing that it is impossible that some women are disadvantaged because the women as a group outlive men. This is an elementary statistical blunder.
Sidney Hook Professor New York University
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