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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
N news
NEWS MANAGEMENT
Editor-in-chief Emma LeGault
Managing editor
Madison Schultz
Production editor Paige Lytle
Digital editor Hannah Barling
Associate digital editors
Stephanie Bickel
Brent Burford
ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
Sales manager
Tom Wittler
Digital media manager Scott Weidner
Advertising director Christina Carreira
NEWS SECTION EDITORS
PAGE 2A
News editor Amelia Arvesen
Associate news editor
Ashley Booker
Arts & features editor Lyndsey Havens
Sports editor Brian Hillix
Associate sports editor Blair Sheade
Special sections editor Kate Miller
Copy chiefs
Casey Hutchins
Sarah Kramer
Associate art director Hayden Parks
Designers
Clayton Rohlman
Hallie Wilson
Art director Cole Anneberg
Opinion editor
Cecilia Cho
Multimedia editor Tara Bryant
Associate multimedia editors
George Mullinix
James Hoyt
ADVISERS
Media director and content strategist
Brett Akagi
Sales and marketing adviser Jon Schitt
CONTACT US
editor@kansan.com
www.kansan.com
Newsroom: (785) 766-1491
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Twitter: @KansanNews
Facebook, facebook@hekanasn
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of The Kansan are 50 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at the Kansan business office, 2051A Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue Lawrence KS 66045
The University Daily Kansan (ISSN
0746-4967) is published daily during the school year except Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, fall break, spring break and exams and weekly during
the summer session excluding holidays. Annual subscriptions
by mail are $250 plus tax. Send address changes to The University
Daily Kansan, 2051A Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside
Avenue.
Check out KUJH-TV on Wow! of Kansas Channel 31 in Lawrence for more on what you've read in today's Kansan and other news. Also see KUJH's website at tv.ku.edu.
Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue.
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2000 Dole Human Development Center
1000 Sunnyside Avenue
Lawrence, Kan., 68045
THURSDAY
HI: 83
LO: 60
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014
weather.com
Sunny with a 0 percent chance of rain. Wind S at 10 mph.
The Weekly Weather Forecast
Sunny with a 0 percent chance of rain. Wind SSE at 9 mph.
FRIDAY
HI: 82
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SATURDAY
HI: 83
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Sunny with a 0 percent chance of rain. Wind SSE at 9 mph.
SUNDAY
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LO: 58
Calendar
Sunny with a 0 percent chance of rain. Wind SE at 8 mph.
Thursday, Sept.25
What: SeptemberFest
When: Noon to 3 p.m.
Where: Fourth level of Kansas Union
About: Enjoy free food and live Argentine music. Learn about internships, service learning, study abroad and research.
Friday, Sept. 26
What: Marwa Africana Lecture
When: 7-9 p.m.
Where: Alderson Auditorium, Kansas
Union
About: A lecture by Fred Harris from Columbia University about the future of black politics.
What: Golf Tournament
When: All day
Where: Lawrence Country Club
About: The 10th annual tournament celebrating the Applied Portfolio Management class.
Where: Lawrence Public Library
About: Learn the basics of founding startups from entrepreneurs. Also happening Saturday and Sundav.
What: Startup Weekend
When: All day
Saturday, Sept. 27
What: Chinese Language Day
When: 9-11 a.m.
Where: KU Edwards Campus, BEST Building
About: An outdoor calligraphy event along with traditional Chinese music and folk dances.
What: Latin America Cinema Festival of Kansas City
When: 11 a.m.
Where: Rio Theatre, Overland Park About: The film "La distancia mas larga" will be presented by Tamara Falicov, associate professor of film studies.
Sunday, Sept. 28
What: Art & Science Museum Day
When: 1-3 p.m.
Where: Dyche Hall
About: Activities focused on perspective of objects.
What: Piano Concert
When: 2 p.m.
Where: Lied Center
About: A performance by pianist
Yun-Chin Zhou.
Couple sues state for marriage rights
KELSIE JENNINGS
@kelcjent
Two former University students are returning to Lawrence Thursday night to share their story as a same-sex married couple and to rally support for the LGBTQ community in Kansas.
Charles Dedmon and Michael Nelson have been married since Nov. 17,2013. They were married in California, but live in Kansas where gay marriage is not recognized. They have filed a lawsuit against the Kansas Department of Revenue in hopes that they will soon be able to file their taxes as a married couple.
We believe that Kansas needs a progressive voice and this is the way we can most
authentically Nelson said.
contribute,
They are pursuing the right to file their taxes together because it could serve as a first step towards marriage equality. If they win the lawsuit, it could open the door for resolving other marriage equality issues.
The couple realizes that they could have more marriage rights in other states such as California, but Dedmon and Nelson choose to remain in Kansas because their roots are here and they want to see marriage equality move forward in this state.
Their story goes back to January 1974, when they met at Murphy Hall.
They were both in a stagecraft class and were making a set for "The Playboy of the
Western World." Nelson remembers that Dedmon was painting stage pieces "flat black" while he was priming them. They had a few other classes together and started talking and developed a friendship.
boid Azqun
"It was a tempestuous decade. He got married, I ran away to California."
MICHAEL NELSON
Alumni
"I had no clue that I was gay," Nelson said.
They became roommates and shared a house with
two others, one of them being Nelson's girlfriend at the time.
"It was an odd arrangement;" he said.
But as time went on, Nelson and Dedmon's friendship continued to grow. They would stay up late talking about everything, and gradually those talks went later and later into the night as they shared their thoughts and became closer.
"Lo and behold, after a year of talking, things started to move into another direction and then, bam! There I was, in love," Nelson said.
He said that during the 1970s, the gay rights movement was just beginning and they weren't "out" with their relationship. Both he and Rededman said that police still
raided bars in Kansas City and would take people to jail for being gay, so they had to be careful and stay quiet about it.
"It was just something you didn't even think about," Nelson said.
The couple spent some time apart when Dedmon married a woman in 1977.
"It was a tempestuous decade... He got married, I ran away to California," Nelson said.
But they found their way back to each other. The couple moved to Oklahoma, and from that point on, they shared a joint bank account and considered everything else to be "theirs."
SEE RIGHTS PAGE 11A
White House launches 'It's On Us' campaign
DALTON KINGERY
@DaltonKingNews
Vice President Joe Biden praises Lilly Jay who talked about the impact on her life after she was sexually assaulted as a freshman at Amherst College in Massachusetts, at the White House in Washington on Sept. 19. Biden and President Barack Obama unveiled the "It's On Us" campaign Friday.
The White House launched "It's On Us" last Friday, a national public awareness and education campaign designed to shift the way people think about sexual assault. The program aims to inspire people to see it as their responsibility to take preventative action before sexual assaults occur.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The campaign is partnering with student leadership at over 200 colleges and universities, collegiate sports organizations such as the NCAA, individual athletic conferences such as the Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-12 and a diverse range of private corporations and celebrities. As of Sept. 24, the pledge was not signed by Student Senate.
"As far as we've come, the fact is that from sports leagues to pop culture to politics, our society still does not sufficiently value women," said President Obama in a speech discussing the launch of the new campaign on Monday. "We still don't condemn sexual assault as loudly as we should. We make excuses. We look the other way. The message that sends can have a chilling effect on our young women."
The campaign addresses one of the areas highlighted as a key issue by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault: preventing sexual assault and engaging men in the conversation.
"It's really encouraging to me, on our own campus, to see men working with women, and men working across many
Some members of the University, like doctoral student Phil Wagner, see encouraging signs from the men on campus.
lines to combat sexual violence on campus," said Wagner, one of the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity's 2014 Men of Merit.
"If you've been to any of the meetings related to what's going on here on our campus, you'll see a lot of male faces in those crowds, and I don't think that's something that's always been true with these issues," Wagner said.
The "It's On Us" campaign calls on men in particular to step in if they see a situation where sexual assault seems likely to occur, and charges men with the responsibility of setting the right tone when talking about women.
"It is on all of us to reject the quiet tolerance of sexual assault and to refuse to accept what's unacceptable. And we especially need our young men
to show women the respect they deserve, and to recognize sexual assault, and to do their part to stop it," Obama said. "It is your responsibility to set the right tone when you're talking about women, even when women aren't around, maybe especially when they're not around."
The White House administration emphasizes the need for people to intervene when it comes to sexual assault on college campuses.
"Still today, one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college, and research shows that bystander intervention can be an effective way of stopping sexual assault before it happens," said Tina Tchen, assistant to the president and chief of staff to the first lady, during a conference call with the press. "Bystanders play a
key role in preventing and discouraging and/or intervening when an act of violence has the potential to occur."
Dante Mesa, a senior from Garden City, said changes will come when men stop being comfortable being bystanders and get over the fear of being in the minority when speaking up about sexist behavior.
"it's not saying 'Oh, because I'm not doing it, it doesn't affect me,' because being passive about it means that you're a part of it and you're perpetuating that culture." Mesa said.
Rachel Bullock, a senior from Overland Park, said viewing situations with the potential for sexual assault to occur as an opportunity to do the right thing may be difficult, but it's something that men need to do.
"I think the most import-
an attributs for men are open-mindedness, curiosity and understanding." Bullock said. "I think a really good place to start on the individual level is having the courage to look inward and see the privilege that comes in our society from just being a male."
Edited by Jordan Fox
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