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VOL.101.NO.37
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
TUESDAY,OCTOBER 15,1991
(USPS 650-640)
ADVERTISING:864-4358
NEWS:864-4810
Ross Cooper, Manny King and Ron Brave play an Indian drum song during a Native American Student Association rally in front of Strong Hall.
Rally urges KU to be more inclusive
American Indian groups say they have been denied their historv
By Rochelle Olson Kansan staff writer
The Native American Student Association presented an agenda yesterday calling for KU to be more inclusive of American Indians and
The presentation to KU administrators on the grass in front of Strong Hall concluded a march and rally intended to help people rethink the concept of Columbus Day, which was yesterday.
Among the 60 people who marched to campus from South Park, some beats drum and sang American Indian songs. Others carried banners and flags.
The Native American Student Association and First Americans for Higher Education organized the march and rally.
The agenda, drawn up by the association, called for an increase in American Indian faculty, counselors and nurses at the office of chief affairs.
Inclusion of American Indian contributions in Western Civilization courses and an American Indian studies major also were among the demands.
The association expressed a desire for increased recruitment and retention of students from Haskell Indian Junior College and nearby reserva-
Doug Micco, a sophomore at Haskell, organized the rally. He helped start First Americans for Higher Education to educate people about the contributions American Indians have made to U.S. culture.
Micco said he planned the rally for the same reasons.
Throughout the United States yesterday, groups were having anti-Columbus Day protests and rallies, he said.
"What makes us different is that we are approaching it from an educational view to the academic communication University of Kansas, " Micagosid.
The rally began about 11:30 a.m. when the group gathered at South Park, 12th and Massachusetts
streets.
People at the front of the group carried U.S., Kansas and Haskell flags up to campus and across Jayhawk Boulevard to the lawn in front of Strong Hall, where the group grew to about 150.
Venida Chenault-White, instructor in social welfare at Haskell, suggested to the group that it reflect and evaluate the past 500 years.
Nextyearmarksthequintennential celebration of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.
Chenault-White, a KU graduate, said people must consider the contributions of American Indians to U.S. history.
"Liberty, justice and equality were concepts of native people borrowed by the founding fathers," she said.
The American Indians also revolutionized the food chains of Europe by providing the explorers with new vegetables, Chenault-Wilson said.
been denied their history and it was time to learn about them.
"Is submit to you that the native people of this continent have much to teach you," she said. "Are you ready to learn?"
Rick Thomas, a Santee Sioux and a veteran of the Vietnam War, said the strategies that the U.S. soldiers learned from American Indians had made U.S. soldiers the best in the world.
But she said American Indians had
Thomas said college courses should be changed to include American Indian history.
"People may hate to change history, but it has to because we are dealing with reality," he said. "I hope everybody would take a little energy to understand a little about what we contributed to his country."
After the rally, about 150 students signed a petition stating that they were concerned about a lack of American Indian faculty, resources and representation in the academic curriculum at KU.
Supporters try to save majority vote for Thomas
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas awaited tonight's verdict on his confirmation as the White House attempted to preserve Senate support against last-minute defections by Democratic backers.
"I think the public is very mixed about it," said one wavering Democrat, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. "This is obviously, in my opinion, not one that you can decide by looking at public opinion poll."
Polls indicated that more U.S. citizens believed Clarence Thomas' total denial than Anita Hill's detailed allegation in harassment in the office a decade ago.
President Bush, leading the lobbying effort for his nominee, said support is needed.
After a weekend of heated, sometimes sexually explicit, televised hearings, Thomas' nomination is at last before the Senate, where floor debate will precede the scheduled 6 p.m. rollcall vote.
A simple majority is needed to confirm and send the conservative African-American judge to a lifetime seat on the nation's highest court.
Thomas would have 52 votes, barely a majority, if 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats stick with pledges of support made before Hill's allegations surfaced. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the resolution by the floor without recommendation after a motion of approval lost on a 7-7 vote.
A key Southern Democrat, Sen. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, reaffirmed his support for Thomas, saying that three days of hearings into the allegations by the University of Oklahoma law professor had not changed
But other senators remained undecided as more information about the sexual harassment allegations arose.
Another former aide to Thomas. Sukari Hardnett, told The Associated
Most support Thomas
Various surveys show that the majority of people support Thomas and doubt his accuser. Here are the results of a few polls.
ABC-Washington Post
56%
favored Thomas' confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.
54% were inclined to believe he hadn't sexually harrassed Anita Hill
USA Today
53% of women want Thomas confirmed
57% of men want Thomas confirmed
47% believe Thomas
Angeles Times
24% believe Hill
51% believe Senate should confirm Thomas
25% believe Senate should reject Thomas
Source:Associated Press
Melissa Unterberg / KANSAN
Press that some African-American women in his office at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission believed they had been objects of Thomas's sexual interest and physical abuse. The woman was distributed to the 100 senators.
Hill, back home in Norman, OKa,
received a rousing welcome from suppo-
rts under the Senate or the Senate
or her by Republicans or the
Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Associated Press
Burmese leader wins Nobel Prize
weigian Nobel Committee Chairman FrancisIsteersted.
OSLO, Norway — Burmese opposition leader Auang San Sun Kyi, who has been under house arrest for two years for her struggle to achieve democracy in her homeland, was armed the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday.
It is clear that there will be difficulty in getting the news through, said Nor-
The noon Committee acknowledged that Mrs. Sun Kyi may not know of her $1 million award. Burns's militia are often used by organizations or communication with outsiders.
Mrs. Sui Kyi, 46, the daughter of Burmese independence herd Aung San, won the award for insisting on non-violent means to bring democracy to her impoverished South East Asian homeland of 40 million people
Her party, the National League for Democracy, overwhelmingly won parliamentary elections in May 1990, but Burma's generals have refused to end their repressive rule and let the opposition party take power.
Free buses offered for events in Topeka
By Blaine Kimrey
Kansan staff writer
A performance tonight of a Mexican ballet was moved to Topeka because of the Hoch Auditorium fire, but 87 students will not have to drive to see the show.
Senate allocated $2,149 to pay for student busing to the ballet and three other KU concert series performances at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. The shows were moved there because of the fire during the summer that gutted Hoch, where the shows had been scheduled to take place.
Two buses will take them to the ballet, Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, for free as part of a pre-semester summer this summer by Student Senate.
Jackie Davis, director of the concert series, said that Alan Lowden, student body vice president, had contacted her during the summer about student
Other concert series shows that were to take place at Hoch have been moved to buildings on campus.
transportation possibilities.
"It was great," Davis said. "I was grateful that Student Senate recognized the challenge we were facing."
Bus seats can be reserved at Murphy Hall or at the Student Union Activities office on the level of the Kansas Union.
Free busing also will be provided to the New York City Opera National Company's performance of "Tosca" on March 2, to the Bulgarian State Female Vocal Choir on March 19 and to the Garth Fagan Dance ensemble on April 8.
Student tickets for tonight's performance cost from $8 to $50. Tickets can be purchased at the Murphy Hall box office.
Only five of the 87 seats were available last night for transportation to the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico.
Buses are scheduled to leave from Murphy Hall at 6:45 p.m. on the days of the performances.
Senate has reserved two buses with room for 87 students for each event.
Outspoken author warns against sacrificing classical education for political correctness
By Rochelle Olson
Kansas staff writer
A silent revolution is occurring at U.S. universities, a controversial and outspoken author told a crowd of students on Saturday.
"University leaders are trying to prepare young people to govern in a multicultural society," said Dinehs D'Souza, author of "Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus."
D' Souza, 30, a Dartmouth College graduate who was a domestic policy analyst in the Reagan administration, has helped lead a backlash against what has been labeled "politically correct" thinking.
He said the national movement toward multiculturalism focused on a means to reach a shared goal of harmlessness.
"In an attempt to get proportional representation on reading lists, there is a tendency to reduce ideas and authors to their race, gender or sexual orientation," he said.
But universities should not toss aside the classics in favor of minority studies when teaching multiculturalism. D'Souza said.
Dinesh D'Souza, author of "Illiberal Education:
The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus," speaks about multiculturalism to 700 people.
D'Souza said Shakespeare was a white man but his ideas uncovered the facts of his race and gender.
*"It's important to realize that learning is possible and desirable across racial lines," he said.
You cannot do better than to reflect in a new and critical way some of the great Western classics, D'苏咖
de la Vieille.
He said students should be concerned with scholarship, not labels.
*Shakespeare's view cannot be reduced to a political
stake.*
an ideologically narrow approach to course material.
In "women's studies there is a preferred interpreta-
He said a trend on college campuses was for professors and administrators to enforce their visions of diversity.
platform." D'Souza said.
He said that in an effort to incorporate diversity into the curriculum, universities often demanded confor-
the trend referring to a whole range of ideological causes such as feminism, gay rights and environmentalism is called political correctness, D'Souza said.
People who disagree with these causes are consid ered imp moral, he said.
"It's wrong when those who disent or disagree are classified as bigots or racists," he said. "It is an effort to teach people not how to think but what to think about a whole range of questions surrounding diversity."
"It's not a good idea to have racially segregated organizations," he said.
D'Souza said the issue facing the United States was how to effectively accommodate the many different racial groups.
"There is not a lot of interaction among different groups," he said. "I know at least three colleges that have had separate graduation ceremonies (for different racial groups)."
D'Souza said that when he walked across campuses, he saw an evident racial divide.
he said the advanced pattern of separatism on campuses undermined affirmative action efforts and raised the question of a double standard.
HIS QUESTION:
He said he wondered whether people could imagine a fraternity saying, "We promote white pride. We advance white culture."
Universities would speak out against such a fraternity, although it is common to have Hispanic and Black fraternities and sororities, D'Souza said.
"Why is it all right to have it in the one case and not the other?" he said.
Before the speech, members of the Women's Student Union laid cards on chairs that stated, "This is offensive to women."
Kristen Lange, member of Women's Student Union, said she thought D'Souza was veiling violent attitudes toward minorities and women.