Page 4
Opinion
4. University Daily Kansan, September 13; 1982
No legal leg to stand on
There seems to be little chance for KU's graduate assistants and teaching assistants to force the University to change their contracts, according to Sidney Shapiro, KU professor of law.
Shapiro, who studied the contracts after the University Senate Executive Committee asked for his help, told SenEx Friday that the documents appeared to be legally binding.
Administrators — who later said they were acting in good faith — unilaterally inserted a paragraph in the contracts this summer that gave the University the power to fire a GA or TA if the University faced a problem of "unavailable funding."
The change, which the GAS and TAS did not know of until this fall, allowed for a 30-day notice before a student could be dismissed
After hearing Shapiro's report, the SenEx decided to ask the administration to define "unavailable funding."
Tom Berger, coordinator of the
Graduate Student Council and a SenEx
member, said that KU would not try to
put the students at a disadvantage by
keeping the definition vague, because
the administration already had said it
would act in good faith.
In light of what Shapiro told the SenEx, GAs and TAs already may be working from a legal disadvantage. But that does not mean they should not continue to question the administration's reasoning on the contract change.
The administration's definition of good faith, if based on its action this summer, does not include working with students toward compromise.
The SenEx made the proper move by asking the University to clarify the change, but students should not sit back and wait for an explanation.
Without continuing to press the administration to open the change to negotiation, students are likely to find little satisfaction.
Kansas conspicuously absent in Playboy's college sex poll
"Who are you taking to the party?"
"She's not your girlfriend?"
"No, I've just taken her out a few times." "Is she fun?"
Is she fu
"Yeah."
"The girl I'm taking is fun, too." (Hastily added) "But I don't mean sex."
The two prepes stirling past Watson Library the other day obviously stirling realize that I could never realize that I didn't realize that their sexual conservatism may well have helped knock the old U of K right
TRACEE HAMILTON
out of the running for the top 20 colleges of sin in the United States.
'Cmon, admit it, ever since you saw (or at least heard of) Playboy's "Sex on Campus 1882" you've been wondering why we Jayhawks have increased less sex birds than, say the Iowa Hawkwies.
According to the esteemed magazine, that pair of timeless peppers I owe heard does NOT reflect a
Playboy found that 31 percent of college men thought a casual acquaintance was a sufficient backdrop for a sexual relationship. Only 10 percent of university women agreed.
Ab, but when men start talking in terms of love (take note, boys), a whopping 46 percent of college women think sex is permissible, although only 21 percent of the men think that love is permissible. And only 8 percent overall think marriage is necessary to a sexual relationship.
But those fascinating stats don't answer my main question: Why them and not us?
Take, for example, the Midwest's sex representatives: Indiana and Iowa. Well, maybe Indiana University qualifies, but Butler University? Is it a school for overheated gentlemen's gentlemen? And Grimlin University, where the sexual temperature, according to Playboy, is a cool 88° "Too much thinking, not enough drinking." Playboy lambies.
Worse still, the Big Eight goes entirely unrepresented. This could be the first poll ever without either Nebraska or Oklahoma in its Top 20.
But perhaps the biggest insult is that even Brigham Young squeaked in — INYU, where the typical male is symbolized as a “haloed pioneer,” and the female as a “vectal virgin.” I mean, this is a school composed almost entirely of teethy Donny and Maryes!
I would have taken the distressing news lying down had I not become well-acquainted this summer with several women from the University of Texas-Austin, which. Playboy chose as the sexual hottest among the country's campuses and spokewomen for Zero Population Growth.
My indignation increased with every passing hour. How can Playboy, or anybody, judge the sexual temperature of a campus? Do they look for sorority houses with their Greek letters shining in red neon? Do they search for a tree-lined quadrangle with rustling bushes?
I became curious enough to call Kevin Cook, Playboy's associate editor in Chicago. My call was carefully screened, and I found out later that the reason had good reason. Kevin has been getting a lot of calls.
"I've been hearing about schools I should have included," Cook said cautiously, waiting for my pitch. "The one region that isn't well represented in the Great Plains states, the middle of the country."
Cook explained that he had originally picked about 40 schools, then through a screening process and polls, he narrowed the list to 20. He worked on the project for more than a year.
"We weeded through a lot of ideas," Cook said, "and we picked 20 as a representative cross section — geographically and socially and academically diverse.
"We polled 2,000 in a confidential questionnaire. We talked to alums and many people who were still trying to figure out."
From this research, Playboy decided that the University of Texas-Austin was a "frontier free-for-all" full of "urban cowboy" and "Morgan Fairchild with spurs" types.
"Austin is a really good college town," Cook raved. "It also has an important advantage—the climate. There's more outside activity, people tend to be more active and attractive. Texas is strange; it's a conservative state with a progressive lifestyle."
"There are no very major disadvantages," he said. "Oh, and you can get a good education."
Cook said he neglected that he had not yet visited Austin, but said he planned to do so.
It's good to know that still counts for something.
Reagan sets target on handicapped
It had to happen.
The Reagan administration, apparently having exhausted its battle against higher education, is now swinging the budget axe to education programs for handicapped children.
Improvements in education for the handicapped have been numerous since 1975, when Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142). This act requires that a free, appropriate public education be available to children with handicaps. The laws permit the opportunities for students between the ages of 0 and 6 who have physical, mental or learning handicaps.
Before the act, most handicapped children were excluded from education with "normal" children their age. The law required the start of "mainstreaming," or placing handicapped children in classes with unhandicapped children whenever possible.
The Reagan administration wants to save money and transfer responsibility for the handicapped to individual states. But the changes it proposes will effectively cancel any advances the act has brought about in the last seven years.
The set of proposed changes, suggested by U.S. Education Secretary Terrel H. Bell, would revise specific regulations that "nail down" federal government responsibilities. The outlined changes are designed to reduce parent participation in the placement and evaluation of students and to give school districts more time to develop individualized education programs.
Bell's recommendations are now under study — and heated criticism. A hearing on the issue is scheduled at Kansas City Kansas Community College Oct. 5-6.
The act was considered to be solid and impenetrable, at least until the Supreme Court
The Court turned down a request by Amy Rowley, a deaf grade schooler, for a sign language interpreter in her classes because it was expensive. It didn't matter that Amy was performing ahead of the other children in her classes or that there was still a disparity
between her achievement and her potential. Instead, the Court reasoned that Congress did not intend for "free appropriate education" to include anything that was expensive.
The Court's rulings touchs all handicapped children. Education for the handicapped is, by its very nature, expensive. Each has his or her own distinct problems, needs and learning capacities, and for education to be effective it must be individually geared to these. This was often the individualized educational programs were mandated by Congress in the first place.
So the Court has given the administration the go-ahead to seek its revisions in the law.
Groups of educators and parents around the country are now studying the proposed changes.
The changes have been so numerous, said Don Herbel, director of special education programs
TOM HUTTON
for the Lawrence School District, that few teachers can decide which changes are needed.
"I just received an analysis of some of these changes that's 2 inches thick." Herbel said. "I've only scratched it on the surface, but it looks like it—some are good and some are not so good."
Herbel said various educational groups such as the National Association of Special Education Teachers and the Council for Exceptional Children had published detailed studies about planned and already enacted changes in handicapped education policies. These reports are necessary, he said, to fully understand the effects of the changing regulations.
In but general, school administrators are wary of the proposed changes, possibly because their interaction with handicapped children and their parents stands to be reduced.
evaluation processes for the Lawrence School District's 500 handicapped students, Herbel助
One of the district's special education teachers usually has a conference with each child's parents before attempting to devise an educational program, Herbel said. He said the meetings helped in choosing a "logical alternative."
Parents are now utilized in helping with
"This is a joint decision really, even though the parents are not involved as such." Herbel said. "Occasionally we'll ask the parents to respond to activities at home and they can add input that way."
Herbel also said parents were consulted about the teacher's final evaluation and individualized educational goals and plans to make sure the parents understood the intent of the program.
The threat of removing these consultations has parents, as well as teachers, upset. So upset are these parents that hearings such as the one on the issue of public schools began last week, throughout the country.
The other part of the change, which allows districts more than the current limit of 30 days to design a special education program, would permit school districts to postpone dealing with a handicapped education problem indefinitely. It would allow the school district and the government to avoid educating the nation's 5 million handicapped children.
The administration may think it will save money by cutting back on these educational requirements. In fact, we can pay now or pay more later. With education, the handicapped can get jobs and pay taxes. Without education, many end up independent on public care and funds.
The merits of Congress' 1975 bill are uncountable. Thousands of children, who were once closed away from the rest of society, are learning to become part of humanity. They are learning, and so are the unhandicapped children they are now meeting and playing with, that physical or mental disabilities need not make some children societal castoffs.
The Reagan administration apparently intends to shelter us from those who are not perfect. Meanwhile, it is denying an education to 5 million citizens.
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