4A
Wednesday, September 18, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
EN
VIEWPOINT
Student jobs are secure after campus leaders act
The federal minimum wage increase has lent many students in a state of consternation about the future of their campus jobs. Economically speaking, when the minimum wage goes up, people assume jobs will be cut and budgets will be squeezed to allocate enough money for the wage increase. However, at the University of Kansas, this assumption may prove false.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway has pledged to protect all campus jobs that will be affected by the minimum wage increase, and administrators are standing behind his promise. Students working for minimum wage at the University can be reassured by Associate Provost Lindy Eakin and other administrators' temporary proposal to protect minimum wage jobs on campus. Eakin said he had calculated that about $36,000 was needed to increase students' wages. This figure includes every student who is earning less than $4.75, which will be the minimum wage beginning in October.
October. Although the budget for the next fiscal year has been set, Eakin said Hemenway had access to a fund for events that are beyond the University's control, such as the minimum wage increase. The money funneled into this fund comes from a variety of sources, including overbudgeting.
Although the minimum wage will increase again next year, the increase will be anticipated by the University, and its budget can be set accordingly. Until then, it is good that some administrators believe that keeping the University operating depends in large part on students.
NICK ZALLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Commissioners help students with vote for new apartments
Members of the Lawrence City Commission cast a vote for students when they decided to allow the construction of an 11-unit apartment building at the corner of 19th Street and Naismith Drive.
Construction now can begin because of the commission's 3-2 vote to rezone the area. The site is now the home of the First Southern Baptist Church. The church has begun construction of a new building on West Sixth Street and has been trying to sell the old lot for six years. The commission should be lauded for assisting the church in the sale of its property and seizing the opportunity to provide additional accessible housing for students.
The new apartments will help meet the demands for off-campus housing within walking distance of campus.
Commissioners opposed to the rezoning decision cited increased noise and traffic as reasons for their dissenting votes. But a projected increase in traffic is debatable. If more students live within walking distance of the campus, fewer students will drive through campus in search of parking places. However, some residents who live by the church pushed for the construction of additional single-family housing. Ultimately, the initiative passed to zone the lot for apartments. Commissioner Bonnie Augustine said the lot was not conducive to single-family units because of its location. In the end, the commission recognized the site's value to students.
The commission should continue efforts like these to encourage responsible development for students' benefit.
LEWIS GALLOWAY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L. McLAIN
SARA ROSE
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KAREN GERSCH
business manager
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TOM EBLEN
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JAY STEINER
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Editors
Campus ... Suananna Lóf
... Jason Strait
... Amy McVey
Editorial ... John Collar
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Associate sports ... Bill Petulla
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Andy Rohrbeck
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 creative director ... Dessmond Lavelle
Classified mgr ... Shelly Wechter
Racial divide is lessened by Army's opportunities
CHICAGO — Much has been said about the great divide that the O.J. Simpson trial opened up between blacks and whites. But a much smaller divide opened up between those groups in the Army, judging by newly released research.
Remember that famous Gallup Poll taken in July 1994 before the Simpson trial started? It revealed that more than two-thirds of whites surveyed thought Simpson was definitely or probably guilty, while almost two-thirds of blacks thought he was definitely or probably innocent.
cent.
Another less-publicized poll taken among U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany the same month found whites in the military to be less certain than their civilian counterparts of Simpson's guilt and blacks to be a lot more skeptical about his innocence.
cence.
It found that 64 percent of whites in the military thought Simpson was definitely or probably guilty, compared to 68 percent of white civilians, while only 29 percent of blacks in the military, compared to 60 percent of their civilian counterparts, thought Simpson was definitely or probably innocent.
What does that mean? Two experts in military life and race relations think it means a lot. They are Charles C. Moskos, the Northwestern University sociologist who conducted the poll in Germany, and University of Texas' John Sibley Butler, past president of the American Association of Black Sociologists, co-authors of the new book All That We Can Be.
Using this and other data, the professors reveal how whites in the desegregated Army have racial attitudes that are more liberal than their civilian counterparts. Also, blacks in the Army tend to show racial attitudes that often are more
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
conservative than their civilian counterparts.
"It is too easy to say that blacks and whites see the American criminal justice system through a racial prism," the authors write. "It is better to ask under what conditions (racial perspectives) can come closer together." And what conditions might those be? "Shared experiences and genuinely equal opportunity," the authors conclude.
The result is a third culture the authors describe as Afro-Anglo, a culture they say is close to the true core culture of the United States and one that needs to be recognized more fully and shared by more civilians.
Ever since the military decided in the 1960s that it needed to get serious about attacking discrimination, it has provided a model for how the civilian world can also attract qualified applicants of all races without lowering standards or setting rigid racial quotas.
But the farther troops get away from that front, the more they behave like civilians, gravitating to their separate racial enclaves. Once the Army took on the challenge of bridging the racial gap head-on, it largely succeeded.
In fact, the Army now has talent of all races beating a path to its door. The U.S. military has never been better educated or, judging by Operation Desert Storm, better qualified for combat.
The Simpson divide shows how many of those valuable commodities of shared experience and genuinely equal opportunity are perceived as lacking in the civilian world, especially in the way many blacks have come to view the criminal justice system.
While the military, by its nature, attracts a conservative black talent pool, the faith of servicemen and servicewomen in the military system tends to be rewarded in ways that give the military a better reputation for promoting black talent than most civilian workplaces.
most critical in the system or the lack of it is what I suspect the national divide over Simpson's guilt or innocence is really about. The survey taken before the trial revealed attitudes that had very little to do with evidence, as it had not been presented yet, and much more to do with faith in the judicial system, a system that traditionally has not treated blacks as well as whites. Even Simpson prosecutor Christopher Darden writes in his autobiography, *In Contempt*, of repeatedly being pulled over by Los Angeles police officers for the crime of driving while black.
Moskos and Butler offer a list of lessons the military offers the civilian world for improving race relations. Among them are to "be ruthless against discrimination," to recognize that blacks and whites do not view opportunities and race relations the same way and to do all that is possible to help prepare members of disadvantaged groups to compete on an equal footing with the more privileged.
In other words, before we Americans can achieve a colorblind society, we must aspire to a healthier form of color consciousness. Only then, as the recruiting ad says, can we be "all that we can be."
Clarence Page is a columnist with The Chicago Tribune.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Student letters must include the author's signature, name, address, telephone number, class and hometown. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall, or via e-mail to opinion@kansan.com. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call John Collar or Nicole Kennedy, editorial page editors, at 864-4810.
Guest columns: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
The U.S. Senate recently passed the Defense of Marriage Act by a vote of 85-14. This legislation, passed by the House in July, does two things. First, it bans the recognition of same-sex marriages for the purpose of spousal benefits.
Marriage act exudes hatred despite what supporters say
Additionally, it subverts the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, known as the full faith and credit clause, by allowing states to
STAFF COLUMNIST
refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
Many things are disturbing about this thinly disguised, election-year gay bashing. Perhaps most upsetting is the level of hypocrisy that this bill illuminates among those who claim to support family values.
THE AVENGING VARMINT
Most of the testimony offered by senators in favor of this legislation centered on the detrimental effects that same-sex marriage would have on society. Some of the most vocal supporters of this divisive and hateful attack on fellow Americans would do well to examine their own family values and the decivilizing effects of their behavior on our society.
The same people who want us to think that same-sex marriage would lead to the downfall of civilization are of the same mindset as those who sounded similarly dire warnings in the face of the Emancipation Proclamation. The same arguments were faced by the suffragists prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Interracial marriage proponents overcame hauntingly similar ignorance.
institutions are continually evolving despite the scare tactics of strict traditionalists. Family values is a term that has been hijacked by religious extremists and their political pawns to encompass only the most conventional and oppressive manifestations of family. The Defense of Marriage Act is evidence of this.
Family values are about love, commitment, compassion and validation. These values are not exclusive to heterosexuals. Lesbian and gay families have existed since the beginning of time, and the passage of this bill cannot change that fact. The real question becomes whether our society morally can stand for banishing an entire group of people to second-class citizenship.
Another of the leading voices in the House was Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). His support of the bill effectively sent the message to his lesbian sister that she was a nonperson concerning her relationships. This is the same man who, in 1980, served his wife with the terms of their impending divorce while she was in a hospital bed recovering from ovarian cancer. The value of compassion is a lesson that Gingrich could benefit from.
Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), also essentially told his gay son that he was not a full citizen by voting in favor of the bill. Having a parent invalidate and humiliate a child in front of the world is one of the worst cases of emotional battering I have ever encountered.
Shannon Tauscher is a Lawrence senior in social welfare.
Rep. Bob Barr (R-Okla.), who led the fight for the bill's passage, could use a lesson on the value of commitment. He is in his third marriage. It puzzles me how someone with such a track record could speak about the sanctity of marriage with a straight face.
By Lili Barrientos