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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, November 10, 1982
Students' rights at issue
A residence hall program to "keep students on the educational track" could turn into a lawsuit or worse if University officials are not careful.
The director of the office of residential programs, Fred McElhenne, said Monday that resident assistants had been given a list of students living on their floors who were having academic troubles after four weeks of classes. RAs were given the lists, he said, in order to help those students who might be hesitant to go to the RAs on their own.
McElhenie also said that RAs would have access to other student records, including transcripts, in the future.
However noble the intentions of the office of residential programs, access to students' records by RAs must be seen as a violation of their rights. And the issues only begin with that.
Thus far, RAs have been given only lists of names; they do not know specific grades, or even what specific classes students are having troubles with. But why should RAs, whom proponents of the notification acknowledge as students' peers, be allowed access to any indications of a student's academic performance?
The University may be on shaky legal ground. Any KU employee who can prove he has a legitimate educational interest in a student can get access to student records without
violating the privacy provisions of the federal Buckley Amendment, according to Gilbert Dyck, dean of educational services. However, Dyck went on to say, "I don't know how RAs could construe themselves to have a legitimate educational interest."
The administration did not notify students that RAs had been granted access to their files until after the early warning lists went out. If a student were angry enough, he could challenge the University in court, citing violation of his rights under the Buckley Amendment.
Students should feel free to go to resident assistants with their academic concerns, not the other way around. Although McElhenie said that few students thought their privacy had been invaded, he failed to recognize that it should not matter how small a minority of students think their rights have been abused.
It is difficult to gauge the feelings of RAs at this point, but just how much does the University expect of RAs? Are they to be personalized academic counselors for 60 to 90 residents apiece, as well as full-time students and part-time employees?
A policy allowing students access to other students' academic records should be considered a red flag to the entire University community.
Identity of 'Deep Throat' doesn't really matter now
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein unfolded the real story of the Watergate break-in with the help of the mysterious "Deep Threat," who provided the elusive pieces of that puzzle.
They would not have found the necessary links and information without the help of Deep Throat — a very informed person who liked to meet in deserted Washington, D.C. C.D. underground gar-
People are still talking about the break-in and the person who supplied the two. Washington police have said they didn't know who was involved.
CATHERINE BEHAN
the White House to the break-in at the Democratic Party's national headquarters.
the White House to the break-
Democratic Party's national headquarters.
Guessing the identity of Deep Throat is a popular game in Washington, especially among the co-conspirators themselves in their books about the affair.
Recently, John Dean, who was White House counsel during the early days, wrote in his book *The Story of America*.
Haig was appointed Nixon's chief of staff May 4, 1973, in the last months of the Nixon presidency. Before that, Haig was assistant to Henry Kissinger, national security adviser.
In his book titled "No Thank You, Mr. President." John Hebers, a New York Times White House correspondent during the final days of the Nixon administration, wrote: "Haig, I thought, was a man of some conscience and a sense of the public interest . . . Haig was not paranoid about the press the way most of the Nixon people were."
That sounds like someone who might have thought it would be in the public interest to tell Woodward about the goings-on in the White House.
That caution probably would have kept Haig from telling too much.
However, Herbers also wrote, "Hai) was extraordinarily cautious, and what he said in the few private interviews I had with him rarely made news."
Hag also could be described as an ambition and power-hungry man. One doesn't have to remember back to far, specifically as far back as the 1890s, when President Beagan, to find evidence of that.
Haiy probably would not have stuck his neck in any way that might have jeopardized his life.
most importantly, Haug was not appointed as chief of staff until late in Nison's presidency.
from Deep Throat shortly after the break-in almost a year before.
Haig has denied that he was deep Throat. And Richard Nixon responded to Dean's allegations saying, "That's slightly ridiculous. Al Haig is many things. But he knew nothing about the whole Watergate business, had nothing whatever do with it at the time that it happened. He became my chief of staff after, frankly, we'd lost that battle."
Haig also does not seem to be the type of person who likes to hang out in deserted underground garages and divulge touchy information to reporters.
Although it is unlikely that Haig had access to the information Deep Throat provided Woodward, it does not really matter now who Deep Throat was, for many reasons.
For one, it would kill the great game of trying to figure out who the conscientious informant was. What would there be to talk about at Washington cocktail parties?
Finally, and more importantly, if Woodward told us Who Deep Threat was, he would be breaking a solid ethical guideline: 'Thou shalt not enter a building without permission to provide information for background only.'
Secondly, learning who Deep Throat was would be like telling a class of children that there is no Santa Claus.
Rarely is a story worth relying on information provided by someone who refuses to be identified. The Watergate story, however, was one example of this - impossible to solve without a confidential source.
And the reason behind that ethical guideline is yet another reason for not naming Deep Threat — if the promise of confidentiality was broken, other possible informants in similar situations might not talk in the future. Few of us would want to again face the disillusionment and national scandal brought on by the Watergate conspiracy. But the possibility always exists.
Whenever journalists must rely on inside sources for stories such as this, the situation usually proves unpleasant for the newspaper or television station and for the reader, as well as for the person or persons implicated. But if information is inaccessible to journalists, it is inaccessible to the public as well. Sometimes the guarding of information is to protect the public interest; more often, it is to protect individuals' self-interest.
If a story is very important, it is often necessary to go to great lengths to get that story. If informed people who want to get information cannot give it without fear of losing their jobs, then important stories may stay untold. Of course, there are probably some people who
Maybe Deep Throat was Haig, maybe it was Dean. It could have been a lot of people. It really doesn't matter at this point.
Of course, there are probably some people who wish they had never learned of Watergate.
So, John Dean, be quiet.
KANSAN
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'The better part of valour is discretion.' — Falstaff
No slump in the tax shelter business
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON-AT a time when the home-
building industry in a slump, it is good to learn
about it.
"If you've ever cheated on your taxes, it wasn't necessary," the seminar sponsors assure us. "Good planning is the only legitimate alternative to paying taxes."
Their brochure also advances the radical notion that "there is more to life than avoiding taxes."
This fall in far-flung places across the country have there been a series of "Zero Tax" seminars that could produce a flurry of tax shelter projects next spring.
Just what, it does not say.
A cozy little vine-covered tax shelter just meant for two makes an ideal addition to the portfolio of a young married couple whose joint
I don't doubt that even in today's economy a tax shelter is still a good investment, particularly one away from urban areas and near a waterfall.
income is derived primarily from wages.
Perhaps a few morning glories entwined around the loopholes would help give it a honey touch.
I can't help fearing, however, that the tax shelter industry is on a collision course with the Internal Revenue Service.
Every year about this time, the IRS announces it has simplified our income tax form. Again
Next year, 1 gather, Form 1040 will be so uncomplicated we may have trouble staying awake long enough to finish it.
Here are the tax shelter and tax simplification just don't mix. We can have one or the other, but we can't have both, at least not simultaneously.
Is there a danger that the tax form simplifiers will put the tax shelter seminarians out of business? Will the time ever come when there is no legitimate alternative to paying taxes?
The answer to those questions may depend on what happens to the "flat rate" plan now being talked up on Capitol Hill and in other centers of circuitous taxation.
The "Zero Tax" brochure from which I quote promises unquivocally that "there always will
be" a loophole. Yet if the future finds us all paying the same rate on all income, with no deductions, exemptions or exclusions, not to mention rebates, discounts and allowances, it is plain that lawful tax avoidance will be eminently more difficult.
And if the seminar sponsors are on the right track with the philosophy that "there is more to life than avoiding taxes," then taxpayers may enjoy pizza and parties on pepperoni pizza above loopholes.
It would seem, however, that the entire culture of tax avoidance is based on the philosophy that it is better to suffer capital losses than to let Uncle Sam usurp the money.
I'm not suggesting do-it-yourself tax avoidance would be as much fun as "Zero Tax" seminars. But, as the saying goes, any old shelter in a storm.
The ultimate answer to the simplified tax form might be a simplified tax loophole that comes in kit form and that any fool can put together at home, using only a screwdriver.
Dick West is an editorial columnist for United Press International.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Arms convocation to stress alternatives
Given the vote for the nuclear freeze around the country, including the three-to-one majority in Lawrence, there should be little doubt that the American public wants a stop to the arms
However, the freeze, even if the Reagan administration should incorporate it into its arms control plans, is only the stopping of the elevator on the way up while its passengers determine the safest way down. In recent months several alternative ways of supplementing the freeze have been receiving increased attention, in part because of the heightened interest the referendum has brought forth.
One of these alternatives is a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which through prohibition of nuclear testing would indirectly slow the addition of new weapon systems to already large arsenals. The proposed treaty calls for on-site inspections, considered by many to be necessary for reliable verification of any treaty compliance. Another alternative is a No-First Use (of nuclear weapons) pledge by the former national recently proposed by the former national Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara of the Kennedy administration, and by the former American Ambassador to the Soviet Union and author of the post-World War II containment policy, George Kennan.
START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) and Zero Option, both programs of President Reagan being negotiated in Geneva at the present time, are proposals for reducing strategic and tactical nuclear weapons in the United States, the Soviet Union or Europe.
All of these are to be considered in the Convocation on Solutions to the Nuclear Arms Race on Veterans Day, at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 in Woodruff Auditorium a new film on No-First-Use, produced especially for this convocation, will be supplemented by commentaries on political scientist James G. Jaroszewski Pleikiewicz, professor of Soviet and East European studies, was active in the Warsaw uprising in 1944 and later a member of the American Army. Dennis Palumbo, director of the Center for Public Affairs, served in Korea in 1950; Rowland assistant manager of political science and faculty of the Vietnam war, has also been active in veterans' affairs since 1972.
To complement their remarks, materials have been requested from the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Federation of American Scientists, Young Americans for Freedom and Common Cause, and will be distributed to those attending.
This convoction is being duplicated on more than 500 college campuses Nov. 11. Ours is a bit different, but still a nice one.
The political science department, in sponsoring this convocation, is not pushing any of the alternatives to be considered, only the opportunity for KU students to familiarize themselves with proposals, one or more of which just might affect their future.
American wars to commemorate Veterans Day by exploring ways of discouraging future conflicts by slowing down the arms buildup that engages with weapons while decreasing overall security.
Clifford P. Ketzel
Clifford P. Ketzei Professor of political science
To the Editor:
Definitions expedient
I would like to respond to a recent letter by Carmen Penny and to a number of letters in the same vein. She states that human life is created at conception. This she asserts as a self-evident fact; hence any termination of the fetus prior to birth is equated with infanticide or murder. In actuality, however, it is a highly controversial and problematic issue as to when human life may be defined as beginning, ethically, morally and legally.
Let us consider a number of questions that might be seen to arise as a consequence of the acceptance of her argument, Is, for instance, the driver of a car responsible for causing a very minor traffic accident, which nonetheless injures a pregnant woman and induces an abortion, to be charged with negligent homicide? Are we to assign a right to a malformed child to sue its mother for damages because she smoked during pregnancy? Or are we to suggest that a pregnant woman who fell down the stairs suffering injuries that induce a natural abortion should, in addition to her own feelings of guilt, be burdened with a prosecution for murder?
Obviously it would be quite a simple task to so phrase the law that these apparent paradoxes may not arise. Yet in so doing it should become transparently clear that people like Carmen Penny are concerned not so much with protecting the rights of the unborn, but with restricting the right of women to exercise control over their own bodies and their own lives. Thus, in this respect, any definition of human life that equates abortion with murder is the expedient one to prescribe as a self-evident fact, regardless of any agreement upon its merits.
Bryan Bazin
Bryan Bazin Assistant instructor, Western Civilization
Hardage mistreated
To the Editor:
We are getting a little sick and tired of the way the Kansas has been treating Sam Hardage, the guardian for two children.
In the Nov. 3, Kansan there was a front-page headline that proclaimed Hardage had lost and that he had locked himself in a room. The fact of the matter was that Hardage had secluded himself along with his family and his running mate, Dan Thiessen, and other campaign people in a conference room in Hardage's campaign headquarters in Wichita. So what!
Can't a defeated candidate, whether he is Democrat or Republican, have a little privacy to reflect on an election loss before he or she faces the press? Wouldn't the assessment of the loss be more accurate? Just think of how we all react when we suffer defeats. Isn't the natural and human thing to shy away from publicity at that particular point in time, and don't we try to compose ourselves? Hardage probably did the smart thing by detaching himself temporarily away from reporters until he was ready to confront them.
Hardage had been working long and hard on his bid for governor and was obviously frustrated and upset about the election results. This was apparently Hardage's way of dealing with his defeat. He is, after all, human. Somehow, some people expect candidates for public office to be above humanity and to be perfect at all times. It is easy to sit back and criticize someone else's behavior when one isn't in that particular situation.
If that wasn't enough, the Kanan attacked and slammed Hardage again in an editorial Nov. 4. We don't mind a little constructive criticism, but this is ridiculous. Instead of carefully and analytically examining the results of the gubernatorial election, the editor told pot shop leaders that he respected that his campaign threatened to place a stigma (what stigma?) on the Republican Party that could be difficult to escape during the next two years. Hogwash! Who are you trying to fool?
The editorial went on to say that Hardage's idea of leadership was something Kansas and Republican could do without, given his behavior election night. Well, one incident doesn't necessarily strip one of all leadership qualities. In defense of Hardage, whom we both know personally as a liberal activist, the bombing attacks on Hardage, he is still an effective, intelligent and articulate leader, and we hope that he will continue to speak out on the vital issues that confront all Kansans.
In the future we would ask that the Kansan strive to maintain some semblance of fairness, balance and objectivity in its reporting of news and in its editors' articles. After all, the Kansan is a student newspaper, and there is more than one point of view.
Art Rays
Salina law student
Jeff Mason
Ulysses law student