Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, September 27, 1982
KU trapped in catch-22
The University of Kansas, faced with demands from the U.S. Department of Labor to monitor more closely the hiring of minorities, has implemented a plan asking applicants for unclassified positions to provide information on their ethnic backgrounds.
KU sends all such applicants a postage-paid postcard, on which they may volunteer information about their gender and background, as well as information on whether they are handicapped, veterans or aliens.
The plan was devised in response to a recent Labor Department order to follow federal regulations on hiring minorities, after KU was cited for not properly identifying which applicants were minorities. Before the order was issued, search committees had to guess about a person's background, said John Tollefson, dean of the business school.
Juanita Wehrle-Einhorn, assistant director of the KU Affirmative Action office, points out that it is not reasonable for the committees to guess about job applicants' backgrounds.
But the voluntary postcard system is, at best, better than nothing.
Other federal regulations prohibit prospective employers from demanding any information about an applicant's ethnic background. This automatically puts the success of the plan in question.
Because no one has to fill out the postcards, it could be difficult for KU to compile information about minority applicants.
KU is caught in a classic catch-22: The Labor Department demands information concerning minority applicants, yet there appears to be no way to gather that information and still comply with other regulations.
In this situation, it is hard for anyone to expect any institution to comply with rules that conflict each other.
KU and other institutions need to push the federal government to clean up the inconsistencies in the regulations.
The job is nearly impossible, but until it is finished, institutions will continue to run in circles.
Few 'struggling students' can lav claim to real poverty
Sometimes I wonder, I mean really wonder,
whether I will have enough money to buy food for my dinner.
And sometimes I don't have money when I need it for food or rent or the electric bill.
But when KU students say they are "poor," what they usually mean is that they cannot afford to go out for a schoenon or two in the city, but when they cannot afford to buy that new pair of shoes.
Very few of us know what poor really is.
Many KU students drive nice cars, own a lot of expensive clothes and live in very nice, clean homes.
Very few, if any, grew up during the Depression. Very few grew up very poor. And
very few expect to be poor when they leave the University of Kansas.
une economy is bad. But we often forget,
ignores, the reality that we remain a privileged
class.
One of the biggest media stories recently has been the budget cuts here and their accompanying miseries. We just found out that the heat might not go on for a while so that the University can save on the utility bills. And before that, the creeps turned off the air conditioning — twice!
But not too long ago, people viewed air conditioning and even central heat as a luxury — now we gripe about how hot it is in classrooms. So we'll be hearing about how much trouble it can cause when you're wearing negative sweaters so we can stay warm during class or while drinking a Coke in Wesco Cafeteria.
When our parents were in college or beginning to work, everything was less expensive, including a college education. But for my mother, sharing a one-bedroom apartment one year earlier was even more fun. Now, most of us would not dream of sharing a bedroom with another person.
Sometimes I have to call home and ask my father for money. Usually he asks what happened to all of my money, and he is amazed at how much living here costs me. So am I.
For many of our parents, getting a job, unless
a woman planned on motherhood, was taken for granted. They were the new generation of educated people when a college education was becoming more available to those other than the man.
They were the group to bring up the baby boomers, the real start of the huge middle class.
boomers, the real start of the huge middle class. Jobs are scarce now. We are aware of things that our parents weren't so concerned about at our age — like world and social issues. They were concerned about what job to take and who to marry.
Yet, times haven't changed that much. Chances are not great that most topics of conversation at the Hawk or the Wheel consider the questions of the problems of the Third World or Reaganomics — unless it applies to the lack of student aid.
Unfortunately, the topics probably revolve around what to major in, which job to take or
When I was very little, I used to think that growing up to be "a big person" would solve all the problems.
When I was in high school, I thought college and "freedom" would be the answer. Now I realize that college is freedom. Here and now is when we can mooch off parents, get government loans and grants and jobs that will pay for our education to帮我们 schoolers and that new pair of shoes.
When we get out, and if we get a job, we will realize that air conditioning is expensive, and that we can do without a new pair of shoes until they just like our parents and grandparents did.
Now I realize that my parents and probably your parents, went without things they wanted so that my siblings and I could go to a private school and be well-dressed there. What, I wonder, would we do without to make our parents' lives a little nicer — air conditioning?
We do not have to worry about going to school, because the money is there for those who really need it. We do not have to worry about going home for the weekend as our parents might be, because if we do not have a car of our own, we can get a ride from a friend who does.
When our grandparents, and maybe some of our parents, grew up during the 1930s and 1940s, few had cars, few had jobs, and few went to school.
Think about that for a minute before you gripe about putting on that extra sweater to beat the
Students should register to vote
Unlike typical proprietors of such booths, she wasn't giving away free samples or spawning out miles of hard-sell rhetoric. Instead, this facility had hard-sell residents the chance to register to vote.
I was shopping this week at the Rusty's store on 23rd and Louisiana when I noticed a middle-aged woman waiting patiently for customers to stop at her makeshift booth.
Through the office of election commissioners, all four Rusty's locations have set up voter-registration tables. The tables are open
TOM HUTTON
from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday until the Oct. 12 registration deadline, Patty Jaines, Douglas County election commissioner, needs to please necessary to vote in the November elections.
But students do not need to leave campus to register — the Associated Students of Kansas, in connection with the Young Democrats Club, will help them set up in Wescoe Hall and the Kansas Union.
Different reasons usually are given for not voting in elections. The most common reasons are disenchantment with the government's actions or the excuse that one vote won't count anyway.
Those contentions are illogical, self-fulfilling prophecies, especially when applied to local
Gone is the excuse of "I just don't have time," because voter registration is quick, convenient and easy through the temporary locations or at the County Courthouse at 11th and Massachusetts streets. All that's required is having U.S. citizenship and a Lawrence admissibility form. Other requirements are met, a short form is filled out and the registration is completed.
in the 1980 Presidential elections, for example, less than 50 percent of the eligible voters
Voting is a constitutional right that was won through the efforts of our ancestors and retained by the efforts of civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King.
But after the political movements of the 1960s cooled, so did the nation's enthusiasm for it.
The right to vote used to be granted only to those white males who owned property, or those who could at least prove they were white and male. Various constitutional amendments granted blacks and women the right to vote, and soon it seemed that everyone would be able to express their opinions at the polls without restriction. Later, when 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote, it seemed that most of the voting restrictions were gone.
elections where important tax and bond issues are often decided by fewer than 100 votes. The few people who make those votes decide what event the county will be doing for the next two years.
In the 1976 presidential elections, a decision that changed the way many Americans lived was made when Jimmy Carter moved into the White House. Yet only 36 percent of the nation's eligible voters bothered to take part in that election and only 24 percent voted for Carter. It was clearly the country's apathy with government that kept them home on Jimmy Carter's election day.
And little seems to have changed in the public's attitude about government. But the government's problems can only be corrected through reform and change, and can only be accomplished by casting a ballot.
Douglas County is no different from the rest of the country in its apparent lack of interest in
government. Only 35,700 people are registered to vote in the upcoming elections, although the majority of voters are registered.
The most startling voting statistics come from the 1978 U.S. Census.
According to the census report, only 18.4 percent of American 18-year-olds bothered in 1978, and only 28 percent of the population of 26-year-olds voted. Not only are those who did not vote allowing themselves to be ignored by representatives in government, but they also are being outweighed at the polls by the nation's senior citizens.
People of age 65 are three times as likely to vote as someone in the 18-to-20 age bracket. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to understand that politicians always seem to cater to older citizens.
If people under 30 years of age expect any attention to be paid to issues that are important to them, it may be appropriate.
Trendy medical maladies follow latest fads
By DICK WEST
United Press International
According to a compilation I saw the other day, new infirmities to which the flesh is heir
WASHINGTON — Recent medical advances have made possible the identification of many ailments heretofore unknown to man.
— "Cuber's thumb," a swelling caused by the manipulation of cheap imitations of Rubik's Cube;
he pressured victims of "Frisbee finger" or
"dog walker's elbow" in suffering in silence
"Arcade arthritis," a tendon inflammation
bond on by protracted periods of playing
video games.
—"Mechanical-bulb syndrome," a medley of fractures, sprains and dislocations that may result from riding power-driven simulated livestock in night spots.
Faddish afflictions have always been with us. It's just that in the past, ridicule by peers would
Now, of course, we are living in an age when people let everything hang out, including attacks of "sports-car palsy" and "jeans folliculitis."
is there no longer such a thing as mortification?
Although the article I was reading didn't mention this, I can tell you that fads aren't the only thing that gets me mad.
Another big inventory of cultish complaints could be classified as occupational hazards.
We all are aware of "candidate's contusion," the brushed mitts that beset politicians after an excessive amount of handshaking on the campaign trail.
But how often do you hear of 'stake-out slump?' "lyceum ear" and 'leaker's
These last are afflictions peculiar to the journalistic profession.
"Stake-out slump" is a back affliction
"yecum ear." in layman's terms, is a badly bent tympanic membrane caused by exposure to Selenium.
experienced by many reporters who spend long hours outside committee rooms waiting for closed meetings to break up.
"Theleer's addiction" is a predicament similar to drug abuse, except that the user becomes "unable to resist."
Economic cycles and environmental factors are also among the pain-inflictors.
But take heart. Most such maladies are highly transitory.
in times of recession, such as now, an outbreak of "line-folding arches," a footnote that comes from queuing up for unemployment benefits and other distributions, may reach near endemic proportions.
These days, I understand, "demonstrator's larynx," a throat rasp caused by shouting slogs during protest marches, has about run out of blood. It's not long ago that the condition was rampant.
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