4A
Monday, April 1, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Ability, not race, should be requirement for admission
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled against the University of Texas concerning its race-based admission policy. The Court ruled that the university cannot use race as a factor when admitting students.
This marks the first time that a federal appeals court has ruled against affirmative action in state colleges and universities and probably will force the Supreme Court to rule on the issue within the year.
It is exactly this type of race-based quota system that has given affirmative action a bad name, and it is the type of system that the Court needs to eliminate. Affirmative action in its own right may have fewer days ahead of it than behind it, but race-based quota systems must go.
The student who filed the suit had a 3.8 grade point average and was being passed for African-American and Hispanic-American candidates who had lower GPAs.
THE ISSUE:
Affirmative action
In a society where all people should be judged on their merit and not on their skin color, a race-based quota system is unspeakable.
Many educators and lawyers feel this is the beginning of the end of affirmative action. This case, which is referred to as Bakke 2, in reference to the 1978 Bakke case which established affirmative action in higher education admissions, may reverse that prior decision.
During the past 30 years, affirmative action has made great strides toward leveling the playing field for minority groups. Recruitment programs and financial assistance based on race is one acceptable form of affirmative action that should be continued at all universities. However, not choosing more qualified students because they are not a minority is nothing short of discrimination.
CHRIS VINE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
New scholarship program could help Regents remain competitive
The Kansas House approved a bill last week that would help Regents schools to provide tuition and fees to full-time graduate students who have completed recognized scholarship programs, including the Rhodes, Marshall or Truman programs.
This program will make Regents schools more appealing to outstanding scholars, but it must be advertised in all possible arenas to be effective.
Other schools are able to offer a great deal more aid; consequently, students often leave the state in search of competitive graduate-level programs.
State Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, carried the bill on the floor to give in-state schools a chance to compete financially with others. The bill would provide up to $10,000 for scholarships to Kansas residents or students with degrees from Regents institutions. The restriction is a positive factor because it uses Kansas tax dollars to benefit Kansas taxpayers.
The program will be beneficial to the Regents system
THE ISSUE:
Scholarship program
The new scholarship for Regents schools could make them more attractive to graduate students.
only if it actually attracts qualified students. Bringing the best Kansas has to offer academically into the graduate program could only improve the image of all state institutions.
But the Regents system should advertise the program, especially to graduate scholars at their institutions. Letting graduate students know that they have an incentive to continue their education in Kansas could improve the status of the Regents institutions as a whole.
The Regents schools should have a competitive opportunity to keep the most successful scholars in Kansas, but this program should consist of more than common bureaucratic rhetoric. It should actively recruit to ensure success.
JOHN WILSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
eff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNI
Possibility of vice presidency brings return of Powellmania
WASHINGTON — Here we go again.
Look out, Powellmania is back.
You can see signs of it everywhere — rampant speculation, excited palpitations, dread. The speculation centers on whether retired Gen. Colin Powell is going to run for office. The palpitations are generated by the possibility that he will say yes. The dread is generated by the possibility that he will say no.
What kind of sweeteners? Well, Dole could offer Powell an unprecedented but thoroughly constitutional job as vice president and secretary of state. Or, at age 72, Dole could offer Powell a confidential one-term-and-out agreement, promising to step aside after serving a single term, clearing the way for a Powell candidacy for the presidency in 2000.
With the possibility of a Powell vice presidency revived, so is Powellmania. But, this time I am less amazed with Powell for not declining to throw his helmet into the ring than I am astounded by our refusal to let go.
We've been through this before when Powell announced in November that he would not be running for the presidency or vice presidency in 1996. Scores of Americans were disappointed, but I thought that would be the end of it. I was wrong. Now that Bob Dole has earned the Republican nomination for president, speculation is mounting that he might choose Powell to be his running mate and that, maybe with a few sweeteners in the deal, Powell might take the bait.
Yes, "our." I confess: I, too, am a Powellmianic.
I tried to resist. After all, I have other things to do. But everywhere I go lately — and I have been traveling a lot from town to town recently — I hear the drumbeat of "dooyathink" questions:
"Dooyathink Dole is going to choose Powell?"
"Dooyathink Powell will accept"
But I don't think he will accept, no matter how much Dole may plead. The retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was quite clear on that when he ruled out a run for the presidency or any elective office in 1996.
The presidential run requires what Powell called a calling he did not hear. The calling still is there, but Powell apparently still does not hear it. Quite the opposite, he looks very comfortable in his retirement.
I think that is too bad. I would like to see Powell run for no other reason than to see this long, drawn-out drama played out to its logical end. Polls show overwhelming numbers of Caucasians are eager to vote for him, but pollsters have learned the hard way that many Caucasian voters will
"Dooyathink they can win?"
lie about their preferences in racially sensitive elections. That is odd, of course. The fibbers have no reason to feel embarrassed, since their responses are given anonymously. Guilt works in odd ways, I guess.
Yes, I think Dole will pick Powell.
He would be nuts not to. Who cares if Pat Buchanan
More than half of the voters in the early Republican primaries told pollsters they wished that there were "somebody else" on the ballot. Who might that someone else be? Well, Powell still scores higher than anybody else.
As the candidates often say, especially when they are losing, the only poll that counts is on election day.
I would like to see white America put its money where its mouth is, at last.
My answers, in order, have been "yes," "no" and "maybe."
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
The skepticism is warranted. While Dole boasts of bringing people together in contrast to Pat Buchanan's divisiveness, he is co-sponsoring a strong anti-affirmative action bill that would undercut not only affirmative action but also basic civil rights enforcement. The so-called "Equal Opportunity Act of 1966" would actually work to solidify existing racial inequality by eliminating numbers-keeping, the goals and the timetables that measure progress.
and the other extremists don't like it?
Their numbers are dwarfed by the members of the nation's moderate majority who would pour out of their homes to vote for Dole and Powell.
I would like to see Powell run because I think he would be a terrific unifier of the races at a time when our national politics have grown dangerously divisive. Powell offers Americans an appealing alternative — a magnetic leader drawing Americans toward common ground of wholesome, mutually shared values and away from David Dukes, Pat Buchanans, Al Sharptons and Louis Farrakhans.
But, first, before the Dole-Powell ticket can have a chance to unify America, they will have to get past the disunity they would stir up in their own party. If Bill Clinton loses sleep at night worrying about running against a Dole-Powell ticket—and I suspect he does—he probably rests comfortably about the turmoil it would cause among Republicans.
Clarence Page is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Kansan's close-mindedness seen in John Martin column
I am constantly appalled by the barrage of close-minded liberal rhetoric put out by the University Daily Kansan.
A column in the March 20 Kansan by John Martin typifies the close-minded liberal reporting of today.
lectual basis, Martin resorts to ridicule of people who have conservative views.
Instead of presenting a logical argument for his views on an intel-
KANSAN STAFF
In the article, Martin fabricates a letter to Pat Buchanan with the sole intent of making the reader believe that people who support Buchanan are uneducated morons. All he demonstrates is his own personal biased view of people who have values with which he disagrees.
It is also evident by the steady stream of other articles in the Kansan that this university does not teach students hoe to be an open-minded person but a close minded liberal.
HEATHER NIEHAUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
is to try to represent oneself to the reader as a non-judgmental, open-minded person all the while degrading people with conservative views through stereotypes.
Martin's column is a good example of close-minded writing, which
Chuck Ammel
Service Technician,
KU Networking and Telecommunication Services
Business Staff
Editors
Thankfully, someone is there to state the obvious, and more importantly, to stop our ever-sensitive local bureaucracy from further robbing Native American citizens. Thankfully, someone cares about the environment, even if our own commissioners don't. At least in this instance, we can thank the suit and tie guy for doing his job well and saving us from our own reprehensible community leaders.
I just hope they don't do something stupid, like prohibit skateboarding on our new Clinton Parkway bike trail.
Todd Hiatt is a Lyndon senior in social welfare.
Campus ... Joann Birk
... Philip Brownlee
Editorial ... Paul Todd
Associate editorial ... Craig Lang
Features ... Matt Wood
Ride the Rattlesnake ... Tim Boehler
Associate sports ... Bill Petula
Photo ... Matt Pflucker
Graphics ... Nosh Mussar
Special sections ... Novella Bommers
Front ... Trevor Lankes
Illustration ... Miles Lanke
Campus mgr ... Karen Gerach
Regional mgr ... Kelly Connally
National mgr ... Mark Otkine
Special Sections mgr ... Norm Blow
Production mgr ... Reschel Califi
Hosting director ... Heather Walker
Public relations dg ... Cary Breafox
Creative director ... Ekwat Kaowati
Classified mgr ... Stacey Welbergton
Interparty co-op mgr .. J. T. Clark
But whatever the reason, they didn't get prior approval, and now it looks as if they never will. It seems that the EPA is sensitive to something that escapes local leaders. A spokesman for the EPA said that not only had students from Haskell Indian Nations University given enough through the years to preclude their having to sacrifice more, but also that the road as it is designed will ruin the wetlands as a viable habitat.
Critics of the federal government might say that this is just another example of an unresponsive bureaucracy gone awry. To them, the suit-
and tie guy from Washington with a checkbook in one hand and a large book of federal regulations in the other is the bane of the common man. Obviously, they argue, control needs to be given back to the local authorities whose proximity gives them a greater sensitivity to the needs of their community.
Have you seen the new bike trail being built along South Iowa Street? Sure, it is called the South Lawrence Trafficway now, but without EPA approval of its most vital section, it is just a boulevard to Clinton Parkway for the gearheads of Douglas County.
Such naïve surely is only a comfort to the foolish, but let's look at our own local bureaucrats and see if this power-proximity theory holds true.
At least, I hope not. I hope the commissioners acted out of ignorance. I can't imagine that anyone would be so stupid as to begin a multi-million dollar project without first ensuring that it could be finished.
Without EPA approval, new trafficway is just a bike path
A few years ago, the city and county commissioners saw a need. During rush hour, it can take as long as 10 minutes to travel 23rd Street, and the burgeoning upper-middle class which occupies the neighborhood around Alvamar was suffering terribly because of this delay during their commute to Kansas City. So the commissioners, in their wisdom, decided to build a four-lane highway connecting Kansas Highway 10 and Interstate 70. It didn't matter that this golden road would cut through the Baker and Haskell wetlands, forever ending their worth as a spiritual center and outdoor biological classroom. Just build it, they said, and damn the pesky natives and environmentalists.
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
By Jeremy Patnoi