Daily hansan
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
59th Year. No. 116
Thursday, April 12. 1962
CRC Considers Legal Action Against KU
The Civil Rights Council last night passed a resolution threatening legal action against the University for alleged University discriminatory practices.
A CRC MEMBER reported that the NAACP is willing to take the issue to court unless the CRC and the University can reach an agreement.
The action was taken on the basis of a Kansas statute which reads in part:
SPU to Protest Nuclear Tests
The KU chapter of the Student Peace Union will demonstrate against nuclear bomb testing on the day following the resumption of tests by the United States.
Larry Laudan, Lawrence graduate student and acting chairman of the KU chapter, said last night the demonstration is only one way the group will protest the resumption of nuclear bomb testing by the United States. The chapter will also put up posters and arrange for speakers on the topic.
President Kennedy has set April 30 as the date for resumption of tests by the United States. Russia has said they will resume testing if the United States resumes.
Laudan said the SPU is trying to increase student interest in nuclear testing. The group will try to eliminate the idea "that the best way to destroy your enemy is with a bomb or the best way to protect yourself is with a fallout shelter.
"By our (United States) resumption of tests we are putting the Russians in a position where they can resume also," he said. "We've got to find a way to get off this crazy spiral."
Laudan said the group hopes to show that the civil defense program is a fraud and a hoax. Arnold A. Strassenburg, associate professor of physics, will speak about the problems of testing and civil defense at the April 18 SPU meeting.
"Denying civil rights on account of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry; penalty. If any of the regents or trustees of any state university, college, or other school of public instruction, or the state superintendent . . . shall make any distinction on account of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, the person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof in any court of competent jurisdiction shall be fines in any sum not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000)."
ALTHOUGH NO mention was made of the discriminatory practice, informed sources indicate the CRC was referring to the University requirement that freshmen women send their pictures to the Dean of Women prior to their acceptance and the restrictive clauses of certain KU fraternities.
The CRC maintains these pictures are used in assigning Negro women to separate rooms in the freshmen dorms. Emily Taylor, dean of women, recently told a CRC member that the pictures were merely for identification and "personality reference" for the benefit of her staff.
Dean Taylor also said, though Negro and white freshmen women are roomed separately, they may live together if they wish. She said the room assignments were made in this manner because of the initial difficulty freshmen women have in adjusting to college life.
STRESSING THE need for a close relationship between the Chancellor and the CRC, Charles Menghini, Pittsburg senior and CRC co-chairman said. "We need very close cooperation with him on this issue."
In this interest, the council formed a committee composed of Nolen Ellison, Lawrence junior, Donald Warner, Topeka junior and Leland Holbert, Kansas City senior, to discuss the matter with Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe.
The CRC resolution says in part: "The CRC has recently discovered a statute concerning discriminatory practices in state universities in the 1959 Supplement to General Statutes of Kansas, certain University policies may prove to be in violation of this statute.
"The CRC has conferred with the NAACP on this statute and found them willing to litigate it unless the parties involved can otherwise reach an agreement.
"Therefore, the CRC believes it would be in the best interest of the University to meet with the Chancellor for a discussion of certain discriminatory policies, and hereby requests such a conference."
NAACP Plans Investigation
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Sam C. Jackson, Topeka lawyer and vice chairman of the NAACP Legal Redress Committee, said this morning that the NAACP would not sponsor legal action until a thorough investigation is made and until it is certain no other solution can be reached at KU.
He said he had talked to CRC representatives recently and he told them the NAACP is definitely interested in the situation here. He indicated that the NAACP would soon begin its investigation.
He pointed out that the Legal Redress Committee would not consider the complaint of the CRC but would work only through the Lawrence branch of the NAACP.
He said he told the CRC that the procedure for them to follow would be to have an individual student take his protest to the Lawrence NAACP branch.
He said he does not anticipate court action in the near future. He said, however, that such action could be taken on the basis of the Kansas anti-discrimination statute or on the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Mr. Jackson said the NAACP soon would contact the Chancellor and the State Board of Regents in its investigation of the matter.
Kepner, Dickson Clash Over ASC
The two candidates for student body president last night clashed over whether or not chairmen of major ASC committees have been given opportunity to carry out their duties.
Gerald Kepner, University Party candidate, said that the chairmen of the Traditions Committee and the Campus Chest Committee last fall were notified of the appointments only a few days before major activities of the committees were to be held. Kepner also said that some committee members were not notified of their appointments.
(The student body president appoints the committee members and it is his duty to notify the appointees.)
JERRY DICKSON, Vox Populi candidate, replied that all appointments are reported in the Daily Kansan and that all persons applying for committee positions should have interest enough to watch for the announcements.
The debate last night took place at Corbin Hall and was the first in a scheduled series of debates between Dickson and Kepner to explain their stands on campaign issues. The debates will be held in large dormitories on the campus.
MAX EBERHART, present student body president, said after the debate that the president of the Campus Chest Committee, Charles Hess, had been notified last spring of his appointment by Jerry Palmer, chairman of the ASC. Hesc verified that Palmer had notified him of the appointment last spring.
Palmer said that Hess was notified within a week of his appointment. Eberhart also said that he did not feel it necessary to explain the duties of the Campus Chest chairmanship to Hess because Hess had been an active member of the committee prior to his appointment and was well aware of the chairman's duties.
THE CHAIRMAN OF the Traditions Committee, Charles Lynn, bolstered Kepner's charge, saying that the first notice he received of his appointment came late in the summer through a letter from the administration that outlined some of the duties of his job.
The two candidates also argued as to which of their parties has the best method of choosing candidates for ASC offices.
"The University Party believes in the direct primary system," Keper said. "These are not popularity contests."
Dickson said that Vox Populi's closed primary provides the University with strong political leaders while the direct primary weakens the party. Dickson said that the direct primary system does become a popularity contest.
DICKSON SAID that the weakness of the direct primary system is reflected by the replacement of 9 of 22 University Party representatives elected to the ASC in the year and a half that UP has been a campus political party.
Dickson said that these replacements hinder the ASC because the replacements are often "inexperienced and incompetent people."
"The University Party is more representative of all Kansas University students," Kepner said. He added that UP has representatives from all but one of the 10 living districts, while Vox lacks representatives in three districts. He said that Vox has more representatives from the schools, but UP leads in living group representation.
DICKSON CONSTESTED Keperner's statement. He said UP does not have representatives from at last three living districts. The three districts are: Small Men's Dormitories; Married, which has no voting representative and Professional Fraternities and Co-ops, which also have no representative.
In discussing the parties' platforms, Dickson said that "We in Vox feel that the UP platform is very nebulous." He continued that there is not expansion of student government in the UP platform and that his party, Vox, has taken definite stands on campus problems.
Khan to Speak at Opening Convocation
Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan's representative to the United Nations, will speak at the all-University convocation, opening the annual Model U.N. at 9:20 a.m. tomorrow in Hoch Auditorium.
Ambassador Zafrulla Khan will speak about "The Significance of the Expanding Membership of the U.N."
The class schedule for tomorrow will be: 8 a.m. classes—8-8:30 a.m.
9 a.m. classes—8:40-9:10 a.m. Convocation—9-20-10:30, 10 a.m. classes—10-40-11:10, 11 a.m. classes—11:20-11:50.
Model United Nations Has a Rocky History
By Steve Clark
The Model United Nations conference is now as permanent at KU as the campanile, but it has traveled a rocky road in becoming an annual feature.
The first Model United Nations was called the Mock U.N. Plans for it were started in the spring of 1946, but it was postponed until the fall of 1946 so that "plans could be more adequately prepared" and a sponsor could be found.
A previous attempt was made in the fall of 1945. But the plans for it fell through quietly upon recommendation of the planning committee chairman that the Forums board and two members of the conference committee formulate a project to replace the one scheduled.
A series of discussion groups in the homes of faculty members was substituted and John Ise, professor emeritus of economics, opened the first and only meeting with a speech on "The Fundamental Requisites of World Peace" at the home of Chancellor Deane W. Malott.
Another attempt at organizing the conference was made when a group of international students attended an International Relations club convention hgld at Emporia.
Five groups volunteered to jointly sponsor the conference and organized an executive committee. The first sponsors were the International Relations club; Forensic league; Alpha Phi Omega, national service society; Pi Sigma Alpha, national political science society; and Delta Sigma Rho, national debating society.
THE ATTEMPT was successful
this time and on Saturday, May 18, the first Mock U.N. conference was held in Hoch Auditorium. Chancellor Deane W. Maltog gave the opening address and Prof. Norman Hill, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nebraska, spoke that afternoon on "The United Nations and the Possibility of Permanent Peace."
Delegates from 10 midwestern colleges attended the conference. Among these were Emporia State Teachers College, Wichita University, Kansas State College, Missouri University, Park College, Rockhurst and St. Teresa. Six Kansas City high schools sent students to the meeting.
THE ALL STUDENT Council appropriated $100 to cover expenses. Radio station WREN covered the conference and did two 30-minute programs. Four students selected on their participation in General Assembly meetings discussed basic issues on the two programs.
A WREN announcer who was also enrolled as a special student in the College served as commentator for the conference. He summarized each proposal before it was voted on .
Students were instructed not to take stands necessarily as they thought their countries would, but according to how they personally felt toward an issue. Therefore the conference served as a reflector of
student opinion toward world issues.
The first Mock U.N. saw, as many sessions have, a clash between delegations from the United States and Russia. The western world forced Russia to present a list of demands, which included a demand for complete de-industrialization of Germany.
Attendance at the conference was sparse. Fewer than 75 persons were in the audience, but Prof. H. B. Chubb, faculty adviser for the conference, said that those who attended "went away with a more thorough knowledge of the U.N. pattern.
"It is the research work of the delegates that makes a conference of this kind desirable and worthwhile," he said. "We'll have another meeting next year, and plan it earlier."
THE NEXT year the planning was started early and greeted with much enthusiasm. A KU delegation attended an intercollegiate United Nations conference at the University of Missouri on Nov. 14, 1946 as the United States delegation.
At the intercollegiate conference Jean Moore, College senior, was elected convention chairman. Eight days later the announcement was made that KU would play host to 200 American universities and colleges at a National Intercollegiate United Nations convention planned for 1947.
The second KU Mock United Nations was held on Feb. 22, 1947 in Hoch. Pre-conference sessions were held, with conflicts flaring between the United States and Russian representatives.
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