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Wednesday, June 28, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Bias demon haunts Court; new laws needed in fight
Sometimes your past comes back to haunt you.
One of this country's meanest old ghosts is racism, and one of its effects is that minorities often suffer memeaning treatment, racial slurs and even harassment on the job.
factual said a slave must endure the job. And so far, the strongest legal defense against such treatment in cases involving private parties and institutions has been another old ghost: the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
In a 1976 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1866 law could be used to file lawsuits in private discrimination cases. The court renamed the law; it is now referred to as Section 1981 of the U.S. Code.
In 1982, a black woman who worked as a teller in a North Carolina credit union sued her employer for racial harassment under Section 1981. The suit alleged that, in addition to being subjected to racial slurs and treated differently from white workers by being given janitorial tasks, she was denied routine wage increases and training for advancement.
And that leads us to last week's ruling.
In 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that although the law still applied to discrimination suffered during the hiring process, it could no longer be used as a vehicle for filing discrimination lawsuits after hiring.
But even this week in Kansas City, Mo., community leaders are concerned that institutional racism may be taking hold. A school official who allegedly made a racial slur regarding another administrator may be promoted, and this would create the ideal situation for both subtle and blatant discrimination.
How soon we will see the effects of this ruling is anybody's guess.
The real tragedy, however, is that the legal system and even civil rights activists have made no real push for modern legislation that addresses the issue of on-the-job racial harassment. It is pitiful that victims of discrimination are forced to rely on a law that dates back nearly to the time when blacks were held as slaves.
The easiest thing to do now is blame the Court for imposing limits on the application of this old law that not only are unfair to minorities but are a step backward in the movement toward truly equal rights and treatment.
As United States citizens we value our freedom, or at least we say we do. But ever since the Supreme Court decided last week that flag desecration is protected under the First Amendment, a lot of people seem willing to give up part of their freedom for mandatory flag worship.
If new legislation is passed, we may never see the adverse effects that many expect. And we can begin to put our past behind us.
Kirsten Bosnak for the editorial board
Flag burning protects rights
Granted, the flag is a revered symbol in our country. Most U.S. citizens would never even consider burning it in an attempt to make a political statement. However, there are some people who see the burning of the flag as an outlet for expression. Gregory Lee Johnson is one such person.
Johnson, who said he does not consider himself an American, was arrested for burning a flag at a demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention. In Texas vs. Gregory Lee Johnson, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to throw out his conviction.
Offensive as it may be, flag burners share the same protection under the First Amendment as any U.S. citizen.
By protecting these people, the amendment protects us. For we are the people who strive to make this country a better place by exercising our constitutional freedoms.
It's a shame that there are people who value the liberties given them under our U.S. Constitution so little that they would even consider defacing a symbol of that Constitution. But we must recognize the right to speak freely and openly as long as that speech does not pose a "clear and present danger" to public safety.
Respect for the flag cannot be mandated. And that is exactly what the Senate is trying to do through legislation it passed Friday. Don't the senators know respect is something that must be earned? Respect for the flag was earned more than 200 years ago by our forefathers and has since been an inborn characteristic for most of us, because we see it as a symbol of our freedom. If we are forced to treat the flag in a sacred manner, the flag would no longer be a symbol of our liberty, but a symbol of our hypocrisy.
The patriotism of the five justices voting in favor of our First Amendment rights should not be questioned. Their decision was a defense against suppression. Their decision is a continuation of the rights symbolized by the U.S. flag.
Kathy Walsh for the editorial board
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George Bush on South Africa
Shooting down gun control
Sell armaments to the NRA, let hobbyists handle defense
Here's a new idea for resolving the gun-control impasse. It mates two already powerful influ ences upon Congress.
it mates two already powerful influences upon Congress, the National Rifle Association and the taxpayers' rebellion, in a monolithic super-jobby, a jobby for the 1990s.
Plus, it advances the Reagan-era trends toward deregulation of industry and the transfer of responsibility for the nation's welfare to the private sector, namely the sporting goods indust-
If nothing else, it may help resolve the debate over whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of individuals to possess firearms. Let's start there.
Gun-control opponents like to invoke the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which states, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. However, the Army must also be regulated. The business about a 'well-regulated Militia' is dismissed as a peculiarity of colonial American speech."
On the other hand, gun-control proponents argue that the present-day branches of the armed forces satisfy the intent of the amendment. They hold that the first part about the "well regulated militia" conditions the putative rights of individuals to amass personal arsenals.
Really, this semantic morass is easy to clear up. Try inserting some other content into the first part of the amendment. How about: "A diet high in Fiber and low in Saturated Fatts, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
See? It's a non-sequitur, even to a Guns and Ammo subscriber. But it's nonsensical only because the form of the sentence logically entails one assertion in the other.
Here's a better example, inserting the contrary: "A well regulated militia, being inimical to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to govern themselves," or so much for the question of whether the authors of the
Stuart Beals
Staff columnist
Constitution intended to make the personal possession of guns a free-standing right.
So, how do we attach the right to have your own gun directly to the necessity of maintaining a national defense, and keep everybody happy? We regenerate national defense, that's how.
We start by selling the materiel of the armed forces to NRA members and hunting clubs and whoever else wants to get into the hobby of defending the country. The capital and maintenance costs will be borne by the enthusiasts and those who want to help them fund the tax burden on everyone. The hobbyists, in turn, can sell their services to others of us as well. .armed services.
Arms procurement scandals, influence peddling and conflicts of interest will become meaningless terms in a wide-open, laissez-faire market. Weapons smuggled will be aimed at getting guns and bombs, like cigarettes and hooth, to under-aged kids.
Competition among manufacturers and vendors is certain to extend overseas, and our relative economic status may improve as other nations develop their machines in order to arm us. rather than the converse.
we a mantain the jobs of career militaries by getting them to administer the refresher courses required for renewal of one's license to "own and operate Engines of War." Existing ordinances prohibiting launches and explosions within city limits and during certain hours at night (unless, of course, there's a forecast of incoming warheads) should suffice to preserve the general tranquility.
What's in it for you would-be gun and missile owners? The hotter toys that money can buy are now available.
coupons and read the reviews in consumer magazines. You've got to keep up with the neighbors on this, you can let those turkeys with the bratty kids control the land, sea and air.
Just a few million of you could unload your bass boats and pick up a fully-equipped used nuclear-powered aircraft carrier complete with escort vessels. Be sure to check out the "fish-finder" that locates spy submarines along with those sneaky lake trout. Or, you could get together and order one of those low-rider B-2 Stealth Bombers and cruise Eastern Europe on a Saturday night.
Some significant economies of scale can still be obtained. For example, plutonium production can still be subsidized by the large direct-marketing pool of electric power plant customers. This could cost-efficient thermonuclear devices within the budget of a medium-sized city. With blast overpressures exceeding ten pounds to the square inch at a radius of two miles from the hypocenter, the municipal July 4 fireworks display will really make an impression.
Others of you are getting restless, I'm sure. You may ask how this will solve the domestic violence crisis. Hang in there with me, and let's give it a try. It will not usually to restrict ownership of internal machinery.
Boys will be boys, after all. My hunch is that weekend hi-jinx with Trident submarines in a world that's on Launch-Alert status will become such a nuisance that even the most gung-ho defense club members will have second thoughts about that Second Amendment mandate.
Then we'll have a rational base for a change Section One of the 21st Amendment states: "The 18th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repeated." Prohibition didn't work after getting a fair test, so we got rid of it — just like that.
Come to think of it, hasn't the Second Amendment gotten a fair test? Perhaps its time to renovate it. If a majority of us can't agree on how to do that, let's scrap it and start over.
Stuart Beals is a Lawrence graduate student.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Editorial 'slander'
I am writing to protest your choice to publish the quotation from the Philadelphia Daily News on June 21. To try to derive humor from the recent death of the leader of one country and to imply impatience for the death of two others seems of questionable taste even for macabre humor. For the newspaper of a university with many foreign students, I would expect better. To call Khomeini a "wazoo" and to suggest that he should be sent to the many not only in Iran but throughout the Middle East, who saw him as a religious leader . . . some of whom may pay tuition to KU. The editorial page might be used to discuss political issues than to slander the dead and dying.
Linda Donan Graham, Mo., graduate student Say no to China
Linda Donan
During the past month the American public has seen on television a tyrannical regime in China handling a protest of college students by opening fire on them in a great square in Beijing, China. According to Red Cross reports, 3,600 students were killed in a matter of minutes and about 60,000 were wounded in probably one of the worst massacres in the history of mankind.
This is the same communist China that the United States government and State Department have declared a "most favored nation" from the point of view of trade, and to whom we are now sending sophisticated military equipment to make air force flight aircraft more efficient in their mission as a communist military power.
Not only should the U.S. government not have anything to do with a diabolic government like this, but the American people should express their disgust and revulsion by boycott products from the Communist People's Republic of China. They could start by not buying any new goods for sale from many local stores, including the U.S. Military Post Exchanges, and many of the large chain stores.
Another thing we can do is boycott Chinese fireworks this coming Fourth of July. This is the only message that these people will understand. If we continue to support the economy of a communist nation like China or any other communist nation, it will likely lead to Communism succeed. We should not forget that the communists have sworn to bury us, and they have not deviated for a moment from that oath.
E.A. Munyan
Overland Park resident
Natural revolution
About eight years ago, when I was a college student in China, someone raised a question during a weekly discussion session with my teacher. Party to keep our brains washed, but they often out to be
brainstorming sessions or tea parties on many campuses) during which we talked about which radio station was more popular. The choices were the Voice of America or China Central Radio, a propaganda machine noted for its loudspeaker broadcasts along the time of the war. Someone immediately chose VOA, "because no one believes in our own radio anymore." Trying to make the debate more interesting, I pointed out that the majority of the population (70 to 80 percent are farmers) simply could not afford the luxury of the short wave radio necessary to receive VOA broadcasts. Looking back, I realize that it was indeed then, at the time of World War II, the policy adopted by Deng Xiaoping, that people started to turn their backs toward the government. They did not need a radio to make up their minds.
Deng is shooting his own foot! Many people here regard him as a hero in liberating the economic energy of the Chinese people by his reforms. One often misses a critical point on why Deng opened the forbidden gate of China: our country was on the verge of bankruptcy and it did not take even the slightest wisdom to abandon old Maoism — a failed centrally controlled economy.
Most people in China, including Deng, were able to realize that the cause of cancer was cultural revolution, a ten-year turmoil that left the country bankrupt. Only a few courageous young men put out large-character posters on a street wall in Beijing demanding the fifth modernization; a democratic system. It was easily put down by Deng because the rest of the country did not understand what
democracy meant
10day, seeing that thousands of our country's best and brightest fell in front of Deng's machine guns and that hundreds of factory workers stood hard-in-hand with the students, citizens in tens of cities, millions of people in together have made the land in together have made the land in longer, with a single and most powerful word in democracy: "No!" There is no longer any doubt: this is not the cultural revolution that was provoked by Mao some 20 years ago to keep himself in power. That was a mass movement迪拜let its people see the outside world and that was fueled by almost religious frenzy poisoned by our dictators.
This time, it is a spontaneous, grass-rooted and conscientious desire from the educated, the urban labor force and the people to taste the forbidden fruit — freedom to control their own lives.
I agree that what happened on June 4 in the heart and artery of the city of Beijing, its square and avenue, was only a moment of nightmare before a dream comes true; a sudden contraction because there is no blood may be more tears and blood, or a period of uncertainty and hesitation. As the world watches that young man shouting in front of some 30 tanks, my heart goes out to him. The course of the people in Tiananmen square for freedom and democracy in China has been the common goal of the whole world. As an old proverb of my culture goes: nothing can resist a common will.
Wang Mingjing Nanjing, China, graduate student