1115
Opinion
Page 4
University Daily Kansan, August 31, 1982
KU Arabic studies vital
Thanks to an emergency grant from the government of Saudi Arabia, KU students may continue to study Arabic, at least for this semester.
When the Saudis heard that University budget cuts were going to cost the linguistics department its elementary Arabic course, the country's Educational Mission to the United States offered short-term funding to support the program.
The department cuts that threatened the Arabic program, as well as its sister Hebrew-language program, were made last spring before the summer fiscal emergency, and likely were intended to be permanent.
Foreign language programs are particularly susceptible to being trimmed from the budget. If new students are not brought into introductory courses, there will be no one to take advantage of advanced courses
left intact. If no advanced courses are offered, students are not likely to become proficient in the language.
Students in a Hebrew class that was to have been dropped were fortunate to also find private funds to keep the class going through the end of the semester. As with Arabic, what happens after that is up for grabs.
Future funding for Arabic has been requested from the Saudi government, but the University would also be wise to reconsider its future funding for a program so vital as this. Nationally, neglect of languages such as Arabic could hinder future U.S. business and political relations.
"Arabic is a tremendously important world language," maintains Frances Ingemann, chairman of the linguistics department. And considering recent events, that seems almost an understatement.
K.C. nightclub hasn't heard about 1964 Civil Rights Act
There is a public nightclub in Kansas City that doesn't seem to like certain people.
I arrived at a bar during the summer and stepped into a short line before the entrance to have my identification checked. Directly in front of me was a person whose skin was black. The man, who did not wear a mask, satisfied with this person's two picture credentials. He was turned away.
The only I had with me was my driver's
which had no picture on it. I was admitted.
Perhaps the person in front of me was simply underage, but reported incidents of similar severity.
HAL KLOPPER
from the same club appear to point a questioning finger at the nightclub's admittance policy.
"Ebony and ivory Live together in perfect harmony Side by side on my piano keyboard Oh
Although the words to the song "Ebony and Ivory" have become almost trite because of excessive airplay over the radio, the message should not be lost. Paul McCarratt and Stevie Wonder good-heartedly ask for an insatiable appetite to take up their work and grown from the racial turbulence of the 1960s.
A former employee at the nightclub said, "The manager hates black people. The club is" (the club).
Sadly, the management of this Kansas City bar seems to be behaving rather immaturely and has much to learn about dealing with non-whites.
The former employee said blacks were not the only ones turned away; foreigners and even motorcyclists also have been rejected. The club wants to increase its merits in the bar decreases racial animosity.
"At work one night, a guy said that a certain bouncer didn't have to help clean up after closing time, because he was too busy keeping out the black people. A lot of blacks just don't come anymore. They've gotten the hint. Word gets around."
"I can't agree with that sort of discrimination, but it does keep down the number of rights," the footnote wrote.
But fights or no fight, it seems that blacks are both avoiding and being turned away from this bar. Is this part of a slow trend moving us back to the 1960s and its sickness of segregation? Have some of us not learned from the turnul of that decade?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 clearly prohibits discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of race, sex or national origin. Well.
In its statutes, the Kansas act prohibiting discrimination (K.S.A. 44-1002) echoes the Civil Rights Act by stating, "The term 'unlawful discriminatory practice' means any discrimination against ... and the segregation against persons in a place of public accommodations covered by this act by reason of their disability, handicap, national origin or ancestry." The term 'unlawful discriminatory practice' also means any discrimination against persons in a bar ..."
Assuming that what I have observed is an example of the bar's usual admittance policy, and if the former employee's account of discrimination is true, this nightclub may well be in violation of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Kansas act against discrimination.
If that is the case, its behavior is unconstitutional. Illegal and quite a shame.
To think that a public establishment could possibly be reverting to procedures common in the days when blacks were forced to use violence and insults against women revolting and a sad reflection on this nightclub.
Like the black and white piano keys McCartney and Wonder sing about, people whose skins happen to be of a different color should be able to play with them, much less get along on nightclub dance floors.
The solution will be a little more difficult than anything that can be proposed through the lynks of a song, but segregating people nearly two thirds of the population was passed is definitely not helping the situation.
if the nightclub is, in fact, turning away non-white, it is helping to block an important channel of communication between races. Dancing is, at the most basic level, a nonverbal communication, one that conveys both cultural values and personal tastes. Simply seeing whites and blacks sharing good times, sitting and dancing together, is an enormous accomplishment when compared to the rumors of discrimination are burs such as this one in Kansas City are helping to bring this sort of social progress to a standstill.
Even if the law were being violated in this situation, prosecution would be quite difficult. Concrete evidence would be needed, and this would prove to be a difficult task.
However, if the bar is guilty of discrimination, some sort of legal action would be a benefit to both potential and regular customers and might prompt changes in the management.
In a barroom filled with about 500 people, I counted only five blacks.
A few days before school began this fall, I returned to that nightclub and asked the disc jockey to play "Ebony and Ivory."
Is it asking too much of this corporation to let people of different races enjoy themselves "in harmony," even for just a few hours? No, we are talking about the price of admission to a nightclub.
"Oh Lord, why don't we?"
ERA proponents bide time
Opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment may have stalled its ratification, but the war is not over.
In the past 10 years, women in the United States have attained to rally the support of their peers by the ERN.
The Equal Rights Amendment was reintroduced in the U.S. Senate just 24 hours after the June 30 deadline passed without the bill having been ratified. The amendment was reintroduced by Sen. Paul Tsongas, D-Mass., and Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Oregon.
ERA supporters have promised to make the ERA a crucial campaign issue in November, even though Senate Majority Leader Howard said the ERA would be "cooling off" period before debate begins on the issue.
In the past two years, the NOW budget for political action has quadrupled to $3 million. In one month last spring, NOW raised $1.3 million to fund a final push for the ERA, despite the fact that much of the media had written off the issue. We have learned how to raise money quickly.
The first time around, supporters fell three states short of the necessary 38 states for ratification by the June 30 deadline, but they still believe that the ERA will one day be a fact of
According to the president of the Lawrence chapter of National Organization of Women, Lucy Smith. "It is hard to keep 52 percent of the population oppressed."
But opponents of the ERA, such as Barbara Hanna, head of Pre-Family Forum, an anti-ERA organization in Lawrence, are confident that the ERA issue is a dead one.
"I have no doubt we can defeat it again," Hanna said.
of American women disapprove of his economic policies. They primarily criticize his budget cuts in programs that help women, such as Medicaid and the child care program, because it is in their favor to support women's causes.
When conducting that work a marriage lasts 72 years to achieve, however, those gains made for women through the unsuccessful attempt at marriage have been undatable and have been with relative speed.
True to the cigarette ad, women indeed have come a long way.
A women's voting bloc also has resulted from the ERA effort. This bloc has emerged as one that crosses lines of age, race and party affiliation. A recent Washington PostABC poll showed that women were more critical of President Reagan than men. Fifty-eight percent
As one NOW member put it, "ERA is no longer a question of 'whether', as it once was" — but "wheretofore".
Women, too, have built a powerful network to help elect "their" candidates. In nearly every state, women have formed powerful organizations to promote candidates who are responsive to women's issues. Female candidates are doing better nationwide. In 1974, 45 percent of the female candidates were elected. In 1980, 56 percent of the female candidates won office as legislators increases, women will receive the representation deserved on issues that affect them.
Legislative advances benefiting women have been realized. Fourteen states have adopted state equal rights amendments as part of their own constitutions since 1971. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, passed in 1978 as ERA momentum mounted, has made it illegal for employers to discriminate against women on the basis of pregnancy. And more states than ever have equitable distribution laws in divorce cases.
It is evident that the ERA ratification effort, falling short of its ultimate goal, was not under the control.
Other notable changes and achievements have occurred as well:
- The average U.S. female undergraduate is 27 years old.
- NOW raises more money than the National Democratic Party.
- — or for the first time in history, a woman is now
just of the Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
- There are more than 30,000 women's studies courses in colleges and universities.
Proponents of the ERA should be lauded for such gains — although their primary goal of ratification was not achieved. The ERA did not fail from want of support from most Americans.
The states in which two-thirds of Americans live have ratified it. And the ERA did not fail because of the efforts of Phyllis Schaffler, however much she may want that dubious honor.
Many supporters think the ERA has been stalled because of conservatism, both economic and religious, within the state legislatures in America today.
It has been virtually impossible to win approval of the ERA in the past couple of years with a conservative administration that is not sensitive with human and civil rights. Smith has said.
ERA opponents found receptive audiences when they cried of pregnant women in war trenches and co-ed toilets, should the ERA pass. On a very emotional issue, ERA opponents succeeded in making plaintive appeals to legislators, the majority of whom are male. Thus, decisions were made with conservative hearts rather than sensible minds.
it ERA is to be passed in the near future, supporters will help to have focus on the state legislatures. And ERA backers already are looking for the next round of ratification efforts.
They do not think, as Barbara Hanna thinks that another push for the ERA would be "like beating a dead horse."
"I think there is next to no chance that the ERA can be passed this time," Hanna said. "I don't think the legislators want to bring it up at this time."
Hanna accused NOW members of "talking out of both sides of their mouths." In the past, NOW members had criticized anti-ERA groups, such as the Human Rights Foundation, legislators to vote against the amendment.
"I notice that NOW is doing the same thing themselves, trying to get rid of legislators who are trying to
Smith had been quoted earlier as saying, "We're going to make sure those who stood in the door were not there."
She referred to plans by NOW to promote those candidates who favored ERA and to support their implementation.
want such emotional feelings about the HKA still fresh, the issue is far from dead. Possibly
But it is almost certain that, should theEqual Rights Amendment be a salable issue again, supporters will stop at nothing until they are guaranteed that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
Gorsuch answers charges of 'dismantling' EPA
By ANNE M. GORSUCH New York Times Syndicate
WASHINGTON — A recent New Yorker cartoon depicts a television reporter, looking terrily straight-faced, who begins an interview with a senator by saying, "You have been described as lazy, humorous, inunformed, unscrupulous, lacking in compassion and totally unfit for public office. How would you respond to that?"
Questions occasionally put to me by a few people in the news media aren't that slanted. They're worse: "Mrs. Gorsch, you have been described as trying to significantly weaken the protection of this country's environment. How would you respond to that?"
How, indeed? Our record clearly establishes a different story.
Hazardous waste — widely regarded as one of the nation's most pressing environmental issues.
When the administration took office in January 1881, for instance, the ink barely had dried on the Superfund Law, which established an essential program for cleaning up abandoned-waste sites and responding to hazardous-waste emergencies. We were imme-
dietally responsible for building an entirely new environmental program from the ground up.
By the following October — just nine months later,
this extraordinary complex under-
developed in the last decade.
In addition to Superfur activity, the agency recently published regulations designed to ensure safe management of hazardous waste at the site. In the summer, a supervisor labor, the last administration fell four years behind schedule on this crucial task, missing two court-ordered deadlines along the way. We intend to prevent creation of the very type of environment required by Superfur. We now address at abandoned sites.
At present, 160 of the most problematic waste sites already have been identified for priority attention. I have approved more than $88 million in allocations for remedial cleanups and emergency work, and, as dangers are mitigated, new sites will be continuously added to the list.
Finally, we also have issued standards that apply to the disposal of hazardous waste by high-temperature incineration. The rules call for a 99.99 percent level of destruction.
These initiatives are not merely isolated or showcase events. The EFA is making similar changes.
inefficient and ineffectual program for testing the health effects of toxic chemicals. We are back on a workable schedule to establish rules that limit the discharge of toxic substances into waterways. We are putting into use methods that will make the attainment of air-pollution standards at industrial plants far more cost-effective — and the list goes on.
Our critics may continue to clamor, but I submit that these are not the efforts of an administration lacking in environmental soul. In little more than a year, we have developed a battery of programs and reforms that will yield cost savings at less overall cost to taxpayers and consumers.
The idea that the EPA is somehow being dismantled seems to be pure political packaging. Much of the reasoning behind it may center on the fact that this administration first to submit its budget.
Belt-tightening is never painless, particularly when it affects a favored program. Yet most Americans fully agree that something must be done to halt the escalation of federal spending, and they recognize that there is a quantum difference between tightening a belt and untightening one.
In truth, over a two-year period the EFA's budget would only be reduced by about 17
percent as a result of cuts enacted by Congress — from $1.428 billion in fiscal 1981 to a proposed $1.191 billion in fiscal 1983). This is somewhat less than reductions experienced by other agencies, and it is a lot less than the 40 to 50 percent figure mentioned earlier. Furthermore, some critical areas of the EPA's budget will receive increased support, such as the Superfund, up $4 million next year.
These reductions come on the heels of enormous growth at the EPA. During the last decade, the agency's budget grew by an average of $100 million a year. Despite the fact that the last administration had more dollars, it could not necessarily produce more environmental results. Sizeable backlogs of work had, in fact, accumulated.
These are the facts. The sky is not falling at the EPA, as some critics keep crying. The sky isn't even getting dirty. Under this administration it won't, either.
Anne M. Gorsuch is administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Improved efficiencies also have allowed us to protect the existing work force at the EPA. There have been no mass firings, as sometimes rumored, and no wholesale abandonment of key
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