。
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED SINCE 1889 BY THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
(USPS 650-640)
FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1989
VOL. 99, NO.105
Muslim adviser opposes death threat
A crowd of about 200 awaits Jeffrey Lang's review of the book, "The Satanic Verses.
eve Traynor/KANSAN
by Steven Wolcott
Kansan staff writer
In what was billed as the official response of area Muslims to "The Satanic Verses," Jeffrey Lang, faculty adviser of the Muslim Students Association, said that Muslims should not attempt to take the life of anyone that mocked their religion.
Lang, associate professor of mathematics, spoke to about 200 people last night at the Kansas Union.
Lang said that on the basis of the Islamic religion, Muslims did not have the right to threaten to kill them and were the author of the controversial book.
"The Koran verses that deal with mocking of the Islamic religion do not advocate killing," Lang said. "There is a lot of fear in the West about Islam, Ordering Rushid to be killed only confirms those
The Ayatollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran, has sentenced Rushdie to death for insulting the United States by Viking Books.
"I would venture that the majority of Muslims disagree with Khomeini," Lang said. "The Muslim Students Association has asked me to state that it is their official position that Viking Books and Rushdie and his family should not be threatened with violence."
The Koran is the sacred book of Muslims.
Hammed Hoseini, Iran, graduate student, said before Lang's speech that he had come to hear truth.
"I am a committed Muslim myself," Hosei said, "I find truth in the Koran."
Hoseini said he agreed with Khomeini because the Koran said that people who insisted the prosecution should be put to death his wives should be put to death.
Robert Wales, Rumford Center,
Maine, junior, said he had come to
the speech because he wanted to
be Muslim point of view on the
book.
"I wonder how they are going to defend their position on censorship because I'm a strong advocate of free speech." Wales said.
Lang said the Koran and the life example of the prophet demanded protection of free speech.
"My opinion is that Muslims should respond in kind," Lang said. "Summon our best writers, know what Islam is really about."
See MUSLIM, p. 6, col. 4
Bookstores say Rushdie's book in high demand
by Kathy Walsh Kansan staff writer
Since Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued an edict against the author of "The Satanic Verses," the Islamic State increased all major countries, the United States.
In Lawrence, bookstores are trying to meet the demand.
Bill Getz, manager of M. Oread Bookshop, said the shop ordered three copies of the book before it was published and received them
"We sold the third copy the week Pakistan banned the book; it was of little literary interest until then," he said.
The shop re-ordered the book and got 10 more copies, all of which have been sold.
Viking Press is running a second printing of the book, he said, and shipments are expected to begin in mid-March.
"Whether we will be a beneficiary of that shipment, we don't know," he said.
know he said.
Getz said that the shop ordered 100 books from different sources
See SATANIC, p. 6, col. 5
During a speech on the book "The Satanic Verses," Jeffrey Lang, faculty adviser of the Muslim Students Organization, defends Salman Rushdie's right to write the book, even though it is offensive to Muslims.
Hiring procedures at KJHK could put its funding at risk
by Candy Niemann Kansan staff writer
Charges of unfair hiring practices from former KJHK employees could bring an investigation by the Student Affairs department and possible loss of Senate funding.
raul Leader, co-chairman of the committee, said yesterday that the committee might vote this weekend on whether to investigate the
The primary complaint comes from Tiu McGuire, Goldo, Colo., junior. She was concert promoter at the station during the fall 1983 semester.
McGure, who was not rehired this semester, claims that she and other former employees of the station were given the chance to work for the station again.
Pat Warren, co-chairman of the committee, said Senate rules and regulations required that a group be required to vote on certain matters in order to receive Senate funding.
He said that the committee probably would approve KJHK's budget request for fiscal year 1990 but that the budget could be revoked at any time if the station was found not to meet requirements.
For its fiscal year 1990 budget, KJIH requested 868.678 from Student Senate. It was tentatively allocated $49.361.
"We haven't done anything formally, but we have heard complaints that some of the hiring decisions do not relate to performance." Warren
McGuire said that after she was not hired, she went to Mike Ulin, station manager, to find out why.
"I remember it clearly." McGurr said. "He said that a person on the (KJHK) Board had given him a list of names of students who were not to be hired by the station. I thought that was unethical.
"I asked him why I was on the list, and he said I was not employed because I had shown opposition to the station in the past."
But Ulin denies that he said he had a list.
'Given recommendations'
"I was given recommendations about who not to hire." Ulian said. "I was not about to hire anyone who would cause internal strife at the station, and I was told that Tiuu would."
Ulin said that about 200 people applied and that he did not have time to carefully check all of the applications.
"If I was told by people who had worked at the station that someone was a pain or was hostile, I was not. I didn't feel good enough for me." Ullah said.
Lance Foster, program director, said he told Ulin that McGuire had protested at the KJHK auction last year.
But McGuire said she had not protested at the auction. She said her main complaint with the station was that she had not received enough educational guidance while she worked there.
McGurea said no one at the station helped her with her job, even though she had never worked at a radio station before.
She said that she had asked questions about discrepancies in results of a 1988 listener survey of the station and that she asked about the status of a Federal Communications Commission profanity law. She also asked where the station was moving away from live music and concert promotion.
"It may have been those pointed questions I asked," McGuire said.
She said she knew of about 10 other students who thought that they also had been discriminated against.
Mike Mader, Great Bend graduate student, said he had been offered a position at the station but still thought a problem existed.
"I asked Mike Ulin specifically if here was a list, and he was unable to give me an answer." Mader said.
Brandy Stubbs, Shawnee senior, and Jude Pate, Lawrence senior, were other students who questioned JHK's hiring procedures.
Mike Kutsch, dean of journalism,
lefended the Board's right to deny
jobs to people who caused trouble.
"This is supposed to be a laboratory for the School of Journalism and serve the University." Kautsch said. "I don't see why anyone who is not committed to those goals should be hired."
McGuire said her complaint was not with the station, but with its administration.
"It is not ethical to honor a black-list," McGure said. "He (Uli) told me he was an equal opportunity employer."
$2 million approved for Regents Center
by Alan Morgan
Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA — A joint committee yesterday approved $2 million in financing for the proposed Regents Center, but the proposal has a long journey ahead, a state legislator said yesterday.
"I think there are a lot of other fire hoops it has to pass through yet," said State Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-Lawrence. "Passing through the joint committee was a big step, but it still has a long way to go."
The proposed center, to be constructed near 127th Street and Overland Park, would be used primarily for graduate and research programs.
Some legislators have raised concerns that present financing requests are only the first step for the center and that the University will request additional financing for expansion of the center at a later date.
Yesterday morning, before the Joint Committee on State Building Construction met, the Ways and Means committee reviewed budget figures for KU, including financing for the center.
Because the Ways and Means committee discussed Margin of Excellence financing yesterday without talk of financing the center, Winter said he did not think that the center would be discussed again until after the House Appropriations Committee reviewed it in two weeks.
The Ways and Means committee decided not to recommend financing the center until it received approval from the joint committee.
The joint committee questioned Marlin Rein, KU associate director of business affairs, about the possibilities of future expansion at the center.
Committee chairman and State Sen. Joseph Harder, R-Moundridge, said there was concern among legislators that they would be financing only a first stage of a much larger project.
"I would hope that you (Hein)
would not come back in a couple
years and want funding for a second
phase." Harder said.
"There are no plans for a second phase," said Breen. "But that would be irresponsible for me to stand here and say that future expansion will not occur. There is no second phase of course currently under discussion."
Plans for the center call for a 52,700-square-foot building that would include 22 classrooms, six math and media centers and media center and office facilities.
Rein could not rule out future expansion.
The labs would be used for teacher education courses in art, music, science, computers, counseling and preschool education.
However, 35 acres have been donated for the project. Some committee members are concerned that additional projects would be built on the unused 20 acres and would require further financing from the state.
Gov. Mike Hayden has recommended that $2 million of the State General Fund be used for the center, and that $10 million being raised from private sources.
The 15-acre area also would include a parking lot and maintenance facilities.
If the center receives financing from the Legislature, it is projected to be ready for occupancy by October 1991.
Eastern offers union new proposal Machinists continue talks prepare for midnight strike Unions and airlines await Bush's answer
The Associated Press
Eastern pilots, meanwhile, rejected a separate company offer designed to keep them from staging a sympathy strike with the Machinists. Both the pilots and flight attendants said they would refuse to cross picket strikes; the strike was cooled after the end of a federally imposed cooling of tonight.
The union said the company offer was an improvement but still called for pay cuts rather than pay bikes, and strike preparations were continuing. Further talks also were expected, mediators said.
WASHINGTON — Eastern Airlines offered a new contract proposal to its Machinists union yesterday, and federal mediators expressed hope of averting a strike, scheduled for mid-October that could disrupt travel nationwide.
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said all union workers should honor Machinn picket lines, which other union officials have said could be put at other airlines and transportation companies in addition to East
Kirkland accused Frank Lorenzo, owner of Texas Air Corp. Eastern's parent company, of "finding it worth his while to purchase a good company and strip its assets, rather than operate it fairly and decently."
Kirkland asked President Bush to follow a National Mediation Board request and call a special panel that would delay a strike for 60 days.
Bush plans to meet with top advisers on the situation today.
Eastern opposes presidential action, saying that the company is losing $1 million a day and can't
afford more delay in making salary cuts it has proposed. It had originally asked $150 million in cuts, but union leaders said the new offer was less stringent.
"The company is still looking for major concessions, but it's not $150 million." Haber said.
The union has been asking for $50 million in raises
Eastern said its new offer would give mechanics a pay reduction that still keeps their salaries 13 percent higher than those of all other employees, who took a 20 percent pay cut when Lorenzo took over the company. Mechanics with baggage handlers would receive no greater cuts than other employees.
Eastern's 3,500 pilots, meanwhile, who were wood ardently by management hoping that they would not cross Machinists' picket lines, reopen an Enterprise the appraisal the company included, sweetened pay and other promises.
"The company's proposal and the manner in which they have sent it forth proves to us that management is not interested in any earnest efforts to resolve the current labor situation at Eastern," said John J. Bavis, chairman of the Eastern Air Lines Pilots' master executive council. Bavis called the offer "a public relations gimmick."
The threatened strike has sent travelers scrambling for other carriers, and Lorenzo warned that a sympathy walkout by pilots could bury the 60-year-old company "in the corporate graveward."
Mechanics have been taking home personal equipment boxes and tools, fearing that they might be locked out
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Union officials and business executives are anxiously awaiting President Bush's decision on whether to block a threatened strike against Eastern Airlines, saying that theinction has to go signal its approach to labor-management problems.
Former President Ronald Reagan responded to his first labor-management crisis in August 1981 by firing some 11,400 striking air traffic controllers. The strike organized labor suffered throughout two terms.
Several analysts from the fields of labor, business and academia said in interviews yesterday that the threatened strike by the International Association of Macau against a proposed airline was not be likened to the situation Reagan faced with the air controllers.
The air traffic controllers were employees of the government who had signed no-strike pledges, and the 8,500 Eastern mechanics, baggage handlers and ground workers have no such restraints.
Nevertheless, the specter of a strike tomorrow has forced Bush to decide whether he wants to invoke provisions of the Railway Labor Act to impose a 60-day cooling off period.
In contrast to earlier years, when the organized labor movement was much healthier, the employers had to use this law to delay a strike.
In days past, government intervention to stop a strike would have infuriated labor leaders. At the same time, Frank Lorenzo, the chairman of Texas Air Corp. which owned the airplanes off planned cuts in costs could send the carrier to "the corporate graveyard."
White House Press Secretary Martin Fitzwater said yesterday that Bush still hadn't made a decision to use his authority to stop the strike.
Vincent Sombretti, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said that if Baush invoked the law to delay payment of an insurance benefit has asked, it would show a recognition of American labor as an institution.
before the strike. Wearing red union T shirts, machinists were handing leaflets to travelers at Miami International Airport.
Eastern said that it would continue flying during a strike, although company officials refused to disband the group. The company promised that passengers would be
re-routed or given refunds on any canceled flights, but ticket agents reported a surge in sales at Eastern competitors.
Some carriers have stopped short of promising to honor all Eastern tickets, fearing that the company could declare bankruptcy.