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Monday, October 5, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Hero's welcome
Actions speak louder than sentiments
H. E.R.O., the Higher Education Rescue Operation, is about action. It aims to upgrade Kansas public higher education to the level of peer institutions. Its vehicle for improvement is the Regents Margin of Excellence proposal. This plan to allocate Kansas' federal tax windfall to higher education will go before the state Legislature in January if the governor writes it into his budget proposal.
The aim is to encourage students from as many legislative districts as possible to write letters to Gov. Mike Hayden and their state congressmen and to speak out for improvements in higher education in Kansas, which could be achieved through Margin of Excellence.
H. E.R.O. is a grassroots movement with headquarters at each of the seven Regents schools. It works with the Associated Students of Kansas lobbying group.
The goal is a noble one. Responsible political action on the part of students is admirable.
The goal is to raise our budget to the level of those of peer institutions, making KU competitive in the pursuit of students and faculty. Why stop there? We should be interested in excellence in education for its own sake. We should aspire to make KU the standard by which other institutions are measured.
Rhetoric is fine, but on Oct. 14 - H.E.R.O.'s letter-writing day — remember: actions speak louder than sentiments.
The straight answer
Is Vale a gay school?
Does it matter?
The administration of the Ivy League school seems to think so. Various officials have felt compelled to deny that Yale has a higher percentage of homosexual students than other universities, fearing a drop in alumni donations if Yale were to gain such a reputation.
This response is disappointing, especially from such an elite academic institution.
It is far beneath Yale's dignity and wisdom to engage in the denial of these petty accusations. Such charges sway only the weak of character whose beliefs are grounded in ignorance rather than enlightened understanding.
The issue is, as school officials point out, an unfair attack on Yale's reputation. But their righteous indignation at the raising of the issue appears hypocritical when it is accompanied by a denial. The school has given the charges undeserved credibility simply by refuting them.
Yale should have had the courage and the sense to let the affair die of its own inherent triviality. To allow financial motives to interfere with the obligation to discourage ugly prejudice is to admit that the school's immense intellectual prowess is prostituted to a few ignorant alumni and their money.
Gay students are not Yale's disgrace.
The school's immature response to the allegations is the real embarrassment.
Down pat
Colorado isn't having much luck with its presidential hopefuls. On Sept. 28, Rep. Patricia Schroeder left a race dominated by men. She based her decision on a lack of preparation, saying the other five candidates had an edge in name recognition and campaign chests.
She also feared that a presidential bid would remove her from her constituents' needs and reduce her life to a series of "photo opportunities."
As a result, U.S. voters — 53 percent of whom are women must wait yet another four years to see whether they're prepared to accept a woman in the White House.
And recent events have marred the public perception of women who were formerly in the upper echelons of politics. Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's 1984 running mate, is spending her days in the courtroom, hearing trials of both her husband on fraud charges and her son on drug charges.
Not to mention Elizabeth Dole, who last month left her post as secretary of transportation to help her husband in his bid for the presidency.
Schroeder's decision to stay in the House of Representatives instead of moving for the White House may for the next four years put women's issues on the back burner.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Jennifer Benjamin . Editor
Juli Warren . Managing editor
John Benner . News editor
Beth Copeland . Editorial editor
Sally Streff . Campus editor
Brian Kabeller . Sports editor
Dan Ruffelmann . Photo editor
Bill Sketter . Graphics editor
Tom Eblen . General manager, news adviser
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Bonnie J. Hardy ... Business manager
Robert Hughes ... Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer ... Retail sales manager
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Angela Clark ... Classified manager
Ron Weems ... Director of marketing
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JUDICIAL RESTRAINT. ILLUSTRATED
Faithless fans jeer the' Hawks
"Kansas football is a joke."
Sports Illustrated said it. The team is demonstrating it. And the students seem to be enjoying it. Consider what a bad reflection all of these are on our otherwise outstanding university.
Before the season even began, the leading sports magazine in the nation took it upon itself to attack our football program mercilessly for cheap laughs. It was acceptable that, in the context of a well-written article, the magazine predicted a long season for the Jayhawks.
But this repitable journal took the attack further, stooping to get in a couple of late hits. It ran an unrepresentative photograph from last season depicted an inept defensivemit. This was paired with an insult. How many players have varied, variety, followed by the infamously conprise "Kansas football is a joke."
The whole state was up in arms. No one maligns Kansas this viciously without ruffling a few *fearless*.
I see I was mistaken. So far our team has looked pretty bad. Even the ever-positive Bob Valesente has begun to look worried. He's even complaining about lack of intensity instead of bragging that his players have the highest GPA in the Big Eight Conference.
Kansans have been defensive ever since the "Wizard of Oz" first appeared. We like to show outsiders pictures of blue skies over heavily wooded hills as if this were the norm. More recently, an "aaahh Kansas" advertisement even tried to imply that there were tall buildings somewhere between Omaha and Tulsa.
OK, maybe our football program is in a slump as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. Maybe we've been manhandled by division 1-AA teams. Maybe there is no Gale Sayers or John Riggins in
No one actually fell for it and the ads had to be retracted, but this example proves my point. Kansans are defensive about being from Kansas.
So I thought the football team would set out to create some Kansas skyscrapers of its own and prove those damn Yankees at SI wrong. I had two questions. First, how do you talk about an "outside shot" at a bowl bid.
the 1987 backfield. But must the students revel in our failures?
Unruly fans and unsportsmanlike banners have no place in college football, especially not at the University of Kansas. Our players and coaches are sweating night and day to find a way to win a game for their University as well as for themselves. They deserve to be able to look up into Memorial Stadium and find support for their cause.
Instead they are showered with ice and trash. Banners place the blame on Coach Valesente; who accepted a tough assignment when he inherited the remnants of Mike Gottfried's program.
Those of us who are truly proud of the University of Kansas can only thank God we aren't getting any television coverage this year. The glowing image of the University would be permanently tarnished by the sight of a hall-empty stadium and several student students harassing even the marching band.
We can lose the game on the field and recover, but a losing attitude is the greatest weakness we can display.
Dan Houston is a Tula, Okla., junior majoring in advertising and political science.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Disgrace lingers
The generation of the 1980s claims that the racism and segregation that plagued our nation prior to the civil rights movement have been successfully removed from our society. The Supreme Court supposedly terminated debate on this issue when it decided that school desegregation was constitutional in Brown vs. Topeka, Echo Valley. It argued that aspects of the Era of Disgrace that preceded this decision linger still in the United States.
One particular arena of college life that
confirms this hypothesis is the greek system at KU and elsewhere. Racial lines are drawn and seldom crossed. Black fraternities and sororites coexist with white fraternities just as white train cars coexisted separately from black cars during the validity of Pleasy vs. Ferguson (1896). Functions between these greek entities never include interracial events, as evidenced by the white exclusion / black boycott of Greek Week. Fingers of blame have been and will continue to be used by the university proposes possible solutions. Therefore it becomes evident that the source of the problems lies in the structure of the system itself and the people who run it.
The Greek system is inherently elitist and exclusive. Fraternities and sororites rush people who live up to their social standards, and this usually connotes racial uniformity. Both sides boast of their willingness to accept people of other races, yet reality poses a contradiction. The blatant segregation prevalent in the system would not exist if these claims were of substance
rather than of mere self-justification.
It should be noted that the purpose of this letter is not to defame or degrade the greek system. Rather it is to point out the problem of racial segregation in every facet of collegiate social life, and the Greek system is the most obvious example of our generation's ignorance.
People of mixed races have so much to offer each other, intellectually as well as socially, and yet this potential is neglected even in the 20th century. It is past time that both races overcome their differences and share the benefits of a truly united America. Reform of the Greek system on campuses across the country would be a long-awaited step in the right direction. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so cogently stated, "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
Dan Grossman, Denver sophomore
katz
k.l. thorman
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed