4A
Tuesday, August 29, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: CHANCELLOR'S GOALS
Hemenway's plan is a bold start
Chancellor Robert Hemenway's recently released goals for the University of Kansas are bold, challenging and laudable. The freshman chancellor has taken a great and needed initiative to direct KU into the 21st century.
One of the 10 goals is to raise the number of National Merit Scholars in the freshman class. This is a simple and direct way to increase the academic reputation of KU. If the number of academically superior freshmen can be increased every year, then slowly but surely, the overall academic integrity of KU can be improved. Accordingly, recruitment of other top students should improve also. It is about time KU got serious about recruitment.
The remainder of Hemenway's goals fall into two general groups: The first, improving KU from a personal level including increasing the number of minority students and faculty, increasing study-abroad opportunities and allowing full-time employees
Hemenway's goals help KU by setting an academic direction and improving KU from a personal level.
The second group of goals addresses administrative and financial needs, including increasing funds for research, increasing faculty salaries, reallocating funds and asking the Kansas Legislature for matching funds. Achieving these goals will be difficult, but these goals are perhaps the most important to help KU achieve other goals.
to take a free class. These goals only can make KU more appealing to potential students and more educational for all students.
Hemenway's announcement shows his desire and direction for KU. The University community, however, needs to hold him accountable. Hemenway's determination and strength, coupled with the resources bequeathed to him by his predecessors, should make his goals our reality.
CHRIS VINE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: CHAIN GANGS
Chain gangs shackle civil rights
The idea of rehabilitation has lost its meaning in our society. Often, the word "justice" seems to be confused with vengeance.
Prisons are supposed to rehabilitate and correct criminals in our society. But the use of chain gangs in our prisons suggests that human rights have been forgotten.
Prisons can rehabilitate criminals by teaching them about human rights, not by treating them like slaves.
Last May, Alabama became the first state in decades to reinstate chain gangs. The decision to bring back this cruel punishment is a misguided one. Shackling prisoners at the ankles in three-pound pieces of iron isn't the way to rehabilitate human beings.
Although these prisoners have committed crimes, they should not be treated like slaves or dogs. Prisoners should be treated humanely, and the prison system should
work to modify their behaviors, not to take revenge on them for the crimes they committed.
We should get tough on crime, but not this way. Prisons are not teaching criminals to change their behavior by chaining them together and putting them to work along highways. This is humiliation, not rehabilitation.
To do justice in our society, we need to break the vicious vengeance cycle. Prisoners need to be taught morals and human rights in order to be rehabilitated and to prevent them from repeating their crimes. Criminals need to be treated like humans, not like wild animals behind bars.
LUBY MONTANO-LAUREL FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
COLLEEN MCCAIN
Editor
DAVID WILSON
Managing editor, news
ASHLEY MILLER
Managing editor, planning & design
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
STEPHANIE UTLEY
Business manager
MATT SHAW
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
News & Special Sections...Deedra Allison
Editorialist...Heather Lawrenc
Associate Editorialist...Borah Morton
Associate Athletic Director...Borah Morton
Associate Campus...Teresa Veseyau
Associate Campus...Paul Todd
Isparta...Jenni Carlson
Associate Sports...Tom Hickman
Associate Sports...Paul Kotz
Wine...Robert Alton
Business Staff
Campus mgr...Meredith Hessing
Regional mgr...Tom Dulce
National mgr...Heather Barnes
Production mgr...Heather Barnes
Production mgr...Henry Euston
Krptya Nte
Marketing director...Konan Hauser
Public Relations director...Both Caitl
Classified mgr...Heather Valle
Jeff MacNelly/CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Judge Ito should allow jury to hear the Furhman tapes
Like Shakespeare's Othello, O.J. Simpson sought to transcend his color and become more than an African-American man trying desperately to love and control a white woman.
But with the Furhman tapes exploding onto the trial scene, the naive Simpson now must understand that his color is an issue that the defense is more than happy to discuss. In the tapes, Furhman allegedly repeats racial slurs and brags about planting evidence and brutalizing citizens.
The defense may score big with the jury if the tapes are played in open court. But will Judge Lance Ito allow the jury to listen to the tapes?
Evidence-planting and dirty policing are nothing new to the residents of Los Angeles.
Ito should allow the jury to hear the tapes for two important reasons: First, if Furhman does use racial slurs, the jury has a right to know that he lied under oath when he denied using such language within the past 10 years. Second, if Furhman was involved in planting evidence or in acts of police brutality, these sickening activities need to be exposed.
That Furman was bold enough to participate in the interviews is reason enough to suspect real problems in his police work—and reason enough to let the jury hear the tapes. He obviously had no fear of repercussion because he speaks of the department's code of silence.
This code should be broken.
This arrogant officer should get what he deserves.
As a former Los Angeles teacher, I heard many horror stories from my students who lived in riot territory.
So, the Furhman tapes are par for the course for folks in some parts of Los Angeles. And their "discovery" is no revelation. Perhaps even
injustice that are woven into the pattern of that institution. The department's honesty in acknowledging its faults is key, for we all are watching.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the allegations of evidence-planting is the thought that Furhman may have been a member of a group of officers in the West Los Angeles division known as Men Against Women. This group hated the idea of women police officers, and it disapproved of women holding positions of authority in the department.
The jury in this case, which is primarily African-American, will not be surprised by the tapes, but while some suggest that these tapes may decide the fate of Simpson, the defense should be careful not to celebrate too early. Hearing the N-word alone won't be enough. Sure, the jurors will be mad at Furman, but will they ignore other evidence and acquit on the basis of the tapes alone?
African-Americans have long been required to deal with inner conflict in order to survive. So too, will the jury when it closes the doors and finally begins to sort this thing out.
Only through an in-depth analysis of these tapes can the Los Angeles Police Department begin to unravel the threads of
The tapes also allegedly reveal Furhman's views on the subject. It is ironic that Furhman now is involved in a trial in which a woman was murdered — a woman who was controlled and abused by a man.
Donna Davis is an Overland Park graduate student in eduction.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Faulkner's battle was not just a lost cause
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
In response to Jenny Wiedeke's column about Shannon Faulkner's decision to leave The Citadel, I must disagree with Wiedeke's assertion that Faulkner should have stayed and touched it out. I think it took tremendous courage for Faulkner to make the decision to leave knowing that she would face media scrutiny and criticism for doing so. But Faulkner already gave two years of her life to this cause and did not back down until she was allowed to enter. Should she be obliged to stay, even if doing so will not further her professional and life goals? I don't see why she should. Will young men who decide to leave The Citadel
Thank you, Todd, for voicing your concerns. I know I appreciated it.
Women need to join together and stop violence against women. Sensitive men like Hiatt are part of the solution because violence against women is a societal issue.
jeopardize the opportunities for men who wish to enter The Citadel? Not likely.
The public cannot know the strain that this battle has put on Faulkner. Perhaps she wanted to stop the fight 18 months ago and continued on so that the next woman who wanted to attend The Citadel would not be starting over. I think Faulkner should be commended for going out on a limb and disrupting her life for a principle. It's something few of the people who criticize her would be willing to do. I hope she will now have the opportunity to choose her own path without the pressure of the public eye watching her everymove.
Kyle Solomon
Lawrence graduate student
I would like to thank Todd Hiatt for his column on rape awareness. Unfortunately, the majority of rapes are acquaintance rapes, and whether the woman is naive or on guard, she can become a victim.
Rape awareness needed on campus
In a problem-packed world, much like the one Joe lives in, it would seem that smoking would take the back seat. But not in President Clinton's world, where he has fired up a war on tobacco manufacturers in the United States. In early August, Clinton left tobacco companies smoking when he proposed the biggest government challenge to cigarette manufacturers since 1964's smoking-causes-cancer campaign.
The Clinton administration wants to halve tobacco usage among an estimated 3 million minors within seven years. His anti-smoking plan proposes a ban on cigarette sales to those under 18, prohibits any vending-machine and mail-order sales and limits outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of schools. Tobacco companies only would be allowed to publish black-and-white text ads in magazines whose readers are under 18. The tobacco industry also would have to spend $150 million a year on anti-smoking campaigns targeted at teens.
Clinton's war on smoking fails to address real problems
This seems like a beginning step toward a prohibition-type plan. Prohibition didn't work in the '20s with alcohol; it is not going to work in the '90s with cigarettes. As we have seen in the past, with the DARE program and others, anti-campaigns don't work. There hasn't been a significant drop in teen drug use, even though drug education is being pounded into teenagers' heads. It won't work with cigarettes.
The bottom line is choice. People will choose to smoke, or not to smoke, regardless of who puts what ad where. The double financing of smoking and anti-smoking is like asking the Democrats to finance the Republicans' campaign, in addition to their own. It would be a waste of time and money that could be used in a better way.
It is 3 o'clock. Joe, an eighth-grader from Big City, USA, bolts out the front door of his inner-city high school. He has just flunked his English exam because today is the first day Joe has attended class in three weeks. As Joe walks down the polluted, drug-infested street of his
Amy McVey is an Olathe sophomore in journalism.
In order to win this "new war," someone is going to have to foot the bill. Tobacco companies, in addition to regular ad-campaign expenses, have to spend another $150 million for anti-smoking, teen-targeted campaigns. This almost insures an increase in cigarette prices. So, the smokers will have to pay for anti-smoking ads. What?
city, he wonders if his unemployed dad, drunk since noon, will be waiting to take his frustrations out on him. Last week, Joe's best friend was killed during a drug dispute a block away from his high school. Joe takes out a cigarette and ponders the possibility of whether he could be next
What does it all mean? It means that, once again, the U.S. government is playing with things that don't belong to it. Clinton's little pack plans a hefty price tag and is a big abuse of government authority. The idea of free society is being tossed out the window along with the real problems facing our society.
People seem to be backing Clinton's anti-smoking scheme. How convenient, especially in health-conscious California, for the upcoming presidential race. Maybe it is just easier to fight the "war on smoking" than the already lost wars on drugs, violence and poverty.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin
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