Longer finals period in '68
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan Serving KU For 77 of its 101 Years
SCOTT'S ATTORNEY. William M. Kunstler of New York, a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he planned to file suit this week.
NEW YORK — (UPI)— A leading civil liberties lawyer vowed today to finish the 42-year-old legal battle to strike down Tennessee's law for bidding the teaching of evolution.
In an interview, Kunstier said he would ask the federal court to strike down the law as unconstitutional, enjoin Tennessee officials from enforcing it, reinstate Scott to his teaching position, and enjoin the school board from dismissing him for reasons of discussing evolution.
In a case strikingly similar to the famous Scopes "monkey" trial of 1925, Gary Scott, 24-year-old Jacksboro, Tenn., high school teacher, was recently fired for conducting a class discussion on the theory of man's evolution from lower animals.
The U.S. Weather Bureau predicts partly cloudy to cloudy skies today through tomorrow with a chance of scattered showers or thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow. Low tonight will be in the upper 50's with a 40 per cent chance of precipitation.
The 12 day final exam period was approved March 21 by the All Student Council. It was adopted in the form of a resolution introduced by Kyle Craig, Joplin, Mo., sophomore.
"We contend that this law violates the First Amendment, particularly as affecting academic freedom, freedom of thought and belief."
WEATHER
With the lengthened final period, there will not be a stop week, which many instructors regard as nothing more than a week off.
Bu PAULA MYERS
A twelve-day final exam period was approved yesterday by the University Senate and will begin next year. This will mean one less week of classes each semester due to the lengthened final exam period.
Final week has been a topic of constant discussion for the past three years, said L. C. Woodruff, dean of students.
Evolution law draws legal fire
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
"There are 27 different exams to be given during final week. There will be roughly two each day and possibly three some days." Woodruff said.
Wednesday, May 10, 1967
UNDER THE PRESENT system 27 different finals periods are being squeezed into a six day period.
According to Woodruff the extended final exam period won't present too much of a problem for teachers. Some will have to reschedule their courses, but the laboratory classes will probably be hit the hardest.
77th Year, No. 132
"The present final exam period is too crowded. Students don't have the proper time to prepare for their finals. Now the exams will be spread out and be more of a meaningful experience to each student." Woodruff said.
We can't build a perfect program for every student or teacher."
The resolution fully endorsed the proposal of the Council on Student Affairs.
Dr. Immanuel Velikorsky, pictured here in a sculpture by his wife, will speak at KU next week on his theory of a chaotic universe. Photo by Charles Chandler
THE NEWTON OF OUR AGE?
Velikovsky here May 18
B u DON WALKER
That model, established for more than 300 years and refined by Kepler and Newton, received its first telling jar in 1950. In that year an unknown psychiatrist and student of ancient writings described a chaotic, cataclysmic universe in the best-seller "Worlds in Collision."
Scientific pressure groups were formed to suppress publications of his theory although some of its important features have been proven in the years since it was announced. None have been disproven.
Since the clear statement of the heliocentric theory of the solar system by Copernicus, science has believed the order of the heavens to be almost eternal and unchanging.
THAT SCHOLAR'S IDEAS were attacked by the established scientific community as "ridiculous, preposterous, and obviously false."
However, neither behind-the-scenes inducements nor public hostility have interfered with the visit of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky to KU next week.
THE AUTHOR OF "Worlds in Collision" and other iconoclastic titles such as "Ages in Chaos" and "Earth in Upheaval" will discuss his nonconformity and the resistance it has met from orthodox science. He will lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 18, in the Kansas Union Ballroom, giving the last of this year's Sigma Xi Lectures.
Velikovsky's talk will follow the Sigma Xi banquet dinner which begins at 6:30.
The public is invited to the lecture even if they do not buy dinner tickets, Albert Burgstahler, professor of chemistry and Sigma Xi lecture series chairman, said.
continued on page 7
Goal of KU protestors is now education
By DICK GROVE
"That protest bunch at Berkeley is just a bunch of beatniks and Communists. KU could never have demonstrations like Berkeley."
Sound familiar? This was the opinion given by more than 60 per cent of the 100 KU students that were asked to give their opinion of the Berkeley protest movement in 1965
In March of 1965, just two months after these opinions were given, the KU campus was rocked with a sit-in of 110 students and a protest march of another
(First of a two-part series)
350 students. These were large numbers for a campus that "could never have demonstrations like Berkeley."
"YOU NEVER HEAR MUCH about the protest groups around KU anymore. It's doubtful that KU is in for any major demonstrations."
This is the opinion held today by 70 per cent of the 50 students that were asked to give their opinion of the present protest movement at KU.
Is this opinion a sign of the lull before the storm, much as the opinions expressed in 1965 were; or have the protest activities at KU become dormant or inactive?
HAM SALSICH, chairman of the KU Vietnam Committee, said the protest activities of his organization are still in motion but in different areas than active demonstrations.
"The Vietnam Committee in the last four months has joined with the newly created Kansas Peace Forum to accomplish much more than we could
alone," Salsich said. "This year we tried to aim away from demonstrations and lean more toward active education such as free discussions and open forums. If we find this not doing any good, we will try to combine education and demonstrations."
"Education is the key to the whole thing," he continued. "We're concentrating on building a movement of people who have a belief, and are willing to stand up for it."
Salsich said his organization has greater support than it used to have, but it comes from a different source. The new left, which Salsich considers a good title, now relies on the middle class—the businessman and the chemistry students—rather than the hippies. The Kansas Peace Forum claims a membership exceeding the bounds of KU, including local ministers and laymen.
AN EXAMPLE of demonstrations and education combined, Salsich said, was the "mail-in" of a few weeks ago. Approximately 100 people marched to the Post Office to mail letters protesting the Vietnam war to their Congressmen.
"We don't believe the KU students are apathetic toward protest movements," Salsich said. "They're confused about just what they can do to change things. If someone were to explain to them, I think great things could happen here on campus."
DEAN ABEL, president of KU Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and past president of the Student Peace Union (SPU), agrees with Salsich KU students are not apathetic.
"The students here at KU are more than apathetic. They seem to have almost a negative attitude
"If the peace movement does eventually come down to just the SPU and the Vietnam Committee, I think it will strengthen the movement, rather than weaken it," Bayles said.
IS THE CIVIL RIGHTS protest movement on campus also changing its approach to influencing public opinion? Margaret Linton, chairman of the Civil Rights Council (CRC), believes it is—at least temporarily.
Abel's organization, SDS, has been inactive for some time. He has admitted that for all practical purposes, it has a membership of only one. Abel spends most of his time working for SPU manning a literature table in the Kansas Union.
"The CRC is more concerned with educating the public now than it has been in the past," Miss Linton said. "As far as demonstrating, things are lying dormant now.
The SPU, itself, is still an active organization according to its president, Phil Bayles.
toward speaking out for what they believe," Abel said.
ABEL BELIEVES it would take some major event such as the invasion of the Chinese mainland to provoke a larger number of students to protest actively.
"We still have many complaints about minor incidents on campus," Miss Linton continued. "If these should grow, we'll start demonstrating again."
ON AN EDUCATIONAL LEVEL, she said, the campus has become integrated; but socially there is still much de facto segregation.
"If this situation doesn't clear up, particularly in the fraternities and sororities, within the next couple of years, there will be another large-scale demonstration here at KU," she said.