Friday, March 7, 1986
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
3
News Briefs
Two Topeka men were charged with aggravated robbery yesterday afternoon in connection with the Wednesday morning robbery of the School Employee's Credit Union, 1015 W. Sixth St.
Topeka men charged with local robbery
Nick Mayfield, 19, and Kevin Reed, 18, made their first appearance in Douglas County District Court at 4 p.m. yesterday. Bond was set at $25,000 for each man. A preliminary hearing is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Mayfield was released from Lawrence Memorial Hospital yesterday after being treated for a gunshot wound he suffered after the robbery.
Mayfield was shot after being confronted by a law enforcement police officer.
Reed was arrested in his car in the 700 block of Missouri Street on Tuesday shortly after the mid-morning robbery.
Lawrence police didn't release any additional information concerning the robbery or shooting.
A KU student was injured Wednesday when the motorcycle he and a passenger were riding slid into a curb in a parking lot behind Joseph R. Pearson Hall.
Motorcyclist injured
Two KU police officers saw the accident from a nearby lot and administered first aid to the driver of the motorcycle before an ambulance arrived. police said.
When the motorcycle hit the curb, the driver and his passenger were thrown from the motorcycle, which skidded an additional 30 feet. KU police said.
The officers said the motorcycle accelerated rapidly and started to skid when it reached a curve in the road and stopped 90 feet before striking the curb.
Police called the Douglas County Ambulance Service, who took the driver to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, 325 Main St., where he was treated and released. The passenger suffered a cut to his left knee but refused treatment, KU police said.
Hilltoppers named
Seven KU seniors were honored as Jayhawk Yearbook Hilltopers on Feb. 26 at a reception in the Adams Alumni Center.
The 1986 Hilltoppers are Steve Chranzan, Kansas City, Kan.; David Fidler, Salina; Brad Mazon, Kansas City, Mo.; Shari Rogge, Lincoln, Neb.; Sylvia Sanders, Lawrence; John Secrest, Rockford, Ill.; and Maria S. Swall, Lawrence.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig awarded plaques to each senior.
Chancellor Gene A. Budg awarded plaques to each senior. Each nominee was required to submit an application, a resume, three letters of recommendation and an explanation of what the nominee thought characterized a Hilltopter. The applicants were judged by a panel of KU faculty members and students.
Correction
Because of a reporter's error, the Zulu word UKUFAKKWEZWE was incorrectly identified in yesterday's Kansan as belonging to another language.
Weather
Today will be mostly cloudy and cold with a high temperature in the mid-to upper-30s. Winds will blow at 5 to 15 mph. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low temperature in the mid-to upper-20s. Tomorrow will be less cloudy with a high temperature in the 50s.
From staff and wire reports.
Harvard plan of divestment urged for KU
By Tim Hrenchin
The Kansas University Endowment Association should follow a policy of selective divestment, a former Harvard University official said last night.
Staff writer
Michael Blumfeld, former associate vice president for public affairs at Harvard University, told an audience of 25 at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union that Harvard decided to follow such a policy. Blumfeld now is vice president of corporate affairs for KPL Gas Service.
Selective divestment is a policy in which universities demand that companies in their investment portfolio conform to a set of standards concerning apartheid. If a company does not conform, the university then divests.
Blumenfeld said he spent much of his time at Harvard between 1982 and 1985 dealing with divestment-related issues.
"The threat of divestment is far more potent than the act of divestment," he said. "Once the initial wave of publicity passes, the divoster loses all ability to influence the corporation to change its ways."
Selective divestment, Blumenfeld said, was morally defensible and posed no threat to fiduciary responsibility.
Blumenfeld played a key role in Harvard's first divestment in 1984.
"I'm confident that the companies we kept on hectoring did more to change their mode of operating in South Africa than the one we divested in," he said.
Harvard has divested from four or five companies thus far, he said.
"Total divestment can make you feel very moral, very righteous," Blumenfeld said. "It can relieve the frustration we all feel at the persistence of monumental injustice in South Africa.
"But whether it's really the most moral, most effective thing to do is at least open to question."
The Endowment Association is large enough that total divestment can prove costly, he said, but refusing to address the issue does not befit a socially responsible investor.
Blumenfeld said selective divestment involved two premises: that total divestment of a university's funds would not make a noticeable contribution to ending apartheid, and that universities should not use economic pressure on other institutions to conform to its views of what is right.
"I really believe that, like it or not, there is little a university can do to bring down the nationalist regime in Pretoria and bring human
Michael Blumentfeld, former associate vice president for public affairs at Harvard University.
and civil rights to the disenfranchised black majority," he said. "But even a small contribution is better than none."
David Fidler, Mortar Board member, said the KU Mortar Board sponsored the speech to follow up on a pre-divestment resolution
School issues face deadline at Statehouse
By Mark Siebert
Staff writer
TOPEKA — Deadlines — soon to be far from the minds of frolicking spring breakers — are facing Kansas legislators who have to decide the fates of nearly 100 bills by the close of next week.
If a bill has been introduced into the House or Senate, that body must take action on the bill by Wednesday or the bill will die.
Legislation introduced or assigned by Federal and State Affairs of Justice and Means Control Agencies. BY PHILIP WESTMORE
The Senate considered about 35 measures and the House nearly 65 bills yesterday, including controversial anti-hazing legislation Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Lu Kenney, secretary of senate, said yesterday that next week would be very busy and the Legislature may take March 14 off to recuperate.
"I hear we might take Friday off," Kenney said. "There is a lot of regrouping to do because we flood the other house with a lot of material."
The following bills will be considered today or next week:
■ Hazing — a bill that would make reckless hazing illegal and punishable by up to a $2,500 fine and a maximum of one year in jail. Hazing would comprise any act of initiation by a student organization creating substantial risk of causing mental or physical harm. Anyone joining or tolerating the hazing, including directors, trustees or officers, would be considered liable.
State scholarships — a bill extending the period a student can receive a Kansas State Scholarship to include a fifth year. The bill accommodates students in five-year programs at the University of Kansas and Kansas State University who have had trouble finding financial aid in their final year.
■ Breath tests — a bill allowing police officers to give breath tests on the spot of a traffic violation or accident if the driver was operating the vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
License plates — a bill requiring all motor vehicles, except motorcycles and large trucks, to display license plates on both the front and the back of the vehicle.
Centers for excellence - a bill officially establishing centers of excellence at KU, KState and Wichita State University. The centers already are in operation, but the bill would make the state's commitment official.
Pari-mutuel wagering will pass, senator says
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate will adopt a proposed constitutional amendment allowing pari-mutuel wagering on dog and horse races this session, State Sen. Ed Reilly Jr., chairman of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, predicted yesterday.
Reilly, R-Leavenworth, said he thought the measure, which has passed the House, would receive the support of 28 senators when it came before the Senate. Reilly also predicted his committee would endorse the resolution containing the proposed amendment within two weeks.
Reilly made the remarks after supporters and opponents of the proposed amendment paraded before the committee to give testimony. Spectators, many wearing yellow "trust the people" stickers, crammed into a stuffy room.
As they have many times before, supporters said lifting the state's constitutional ban on pauli-mutual wagering would aid economic development. Officers blasted the proposed amendment anew, saying it would promote gambling and increase animal abuse.
As presently drafted, the resolution would allow the state to put a tax of between 3 and 6 percent on the money
wagered. The resolution prohibits off-track betting and contains a county option provision, allowing some counties to retain the pari-mutuel ban.
The House last month adopted the proposed amendment, 90-35. Both houses must adopt the resolution by a two-thirds majority before it can be put on the ballot for the November general election. Eighty-four votes were needed in the House, and 27 of 40 votes are needed in the Senate.
Reilly said he based his prediction on conversations with other senators and on past voting records.
The committee and the Senate also will not make any substantial amendments to the resolution, Reilly predicted.
James Coffman, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University, told the committee that allowing pari-mutuel wagering could bring between $5 and $8 million into state coffers as tax revenue. Adoption of the amendment also will provide a beneficial rippling effect among breeders, he said.
Jonathan Small, a lobbyist for Kansans for Pari-Mutuel, mentioned his group's poll, which indicates that 84 percent of Kansans want the opportunity to vote on the proposed constitutional amendment and 63 percent favor allowing pari-mutuel wagering.
Lawmen want House panel to bring back death penalty
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Law enforcement officials yesterday urged a House committee to reinstate the death penalty for people convicted of the premeditated murder of law officers and prison guards in Kansas. A bill to do so faces a certain veto by Gov. John Carlin.
Supporters of the measure told the House Federal and State Affairs Committee that enacting the death penalty for those who kill law enforcement or corrections officers would help protect those officers and might offer a deterrent to murder.
Opponents, in often emotional testimony, said the death penalty was morally wrong, was not a deterrent to murder and was not beneficial to the state or law enforcement officers. They also said the death penalty was unfair to minorities.
The committee probably won't take up the bill again for about two weeks, said State Rep. Robert Vancrum, R-Overland Park, the panel's vice chairman.
Under the bill, people who received the death sentence would be put to death by lethal injection.
However, if that type of execution were declared unconstitutional, the bill specified hanging or electrocution as backup methods.
Juries would be required to sit through two trials. The first would determine guilt; the second would determine whether the death penalty would be imposed.
In addition, the state Supreme Court would be required to review each death sentence. Those who were under 18 when the murder was committed could not receive the death penalty.
Carlin has vetowed four death penalty bills, in 1979, 1870, 1881 and 1885, and he would veto this bill if the Legislature passed it, Mike Swenson, Carlin's press secretary, said.
"The sun still comes up in the east and goes down in the west, and the governor is still opposed to the death penalty," he said.
Fred Allenbrand, Johnson County sheriff, told the committee he thought those in the Legislature who opposed such measures had turned their backs on Kansas' police officers.
State Rep. Clyde Graeber, co-sponsor of the bill, said the Legislature had a duty to pass the
State Rep. Martha Jenkins, the other co-sponsor, said that if the death penalty did not serve as a deterrent, it would at least keep people from killing again.
bill. The bill provides the last shield for law enforcement officers and will, if enacted, serve as a deterrent to those who think about killing a police officer, said Graeber, R-Leavenworth.
"Because we cherish life, we are committed to protecting life," said Jenkins, R-Levernworth. "It is our duty to protect the officers who protect us."
Opponents said no scholarly study had ever shown that the death penalty deterred criminals. In fact, the provision may cause some criminals to want to go out in a blaze of glory, they said.
Bill Lucero, a spokesman for the Coalition to Keep Kansas Free of the Death Penalty, said the measure would be unfair to the poor and minorities, who might not be able to obtain competent legal assistance.
Lucero said U.S. courts had given the death penalty to more than 340 people and executed 25 who were wrongfully convicted of murder since 1900.
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