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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Monday, Feb. 3 1986
The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System found that it can do good and still make money.
Morality making money
KPERS voted in September to divest its holdings in U.S. companies that have investments in South Africa but have not signed the Sullivan Principles — voluntary guidelines that require companies to provide equality in the workplace.
Because KPERS happened to sell the divested stock during a bull market, it managed to turn a $1 million to $2 million profit on its $26 million in divested holdings.
Not all investment funds can expect to turn such a quick profit from divestment, of course. A KPERS official estimated that in a normal
market, earning a similar profit from divesting-might take as long as two years.
The argument has been that using divestment to make a statement against South African apartheid may be good politics, but bad economics.
But KPERS unexpected success should counter arguments by the Kansas University Endowment Association that divestment is unprofitable and imprudent.
Instead, the imprudent decision is waiting to divest until the inevitable collapse of aparthied. Those investment funds who, like KPERS, decide to sell their South African holdings now when it is profitable have made the prudent business, and political, decision.
Five months ago, Meese proposed a presidential order to eliminate all minority hiring goals and timetables required for government contractors, suggesting that affirmative action equaled discrimination.
But Meese says affirmative action amounts to illegal racial quotas and is an insult to women and minorities who should be able to rise on their merit.
Attorney General Edwin Meese III needs to rephrase his definition of discrimination.
Keep affirmative action
Labor Secretary William Brock blocked the proposal and defended the Labor Department program, which is enforced by a 1965 executive order. Brock applauded the departmental program because of its effectiveness in increasing minority hiring.
Yes, it may be so that women and minorities can rise on their own performances, but in many cases, it's getting their feet through the door that poses the problem.
Without such affirmative action programs, those women and minorities might not even have the chance to prove their merit.
But how many opportunities have women and minorities lost out to the "Old Boy" system, which is another form of discrimination?
No one can say discrimination simply ceased to exist with the close of the civil rights movement of the '60s.
Some, such as Alan Bakke,
have cried reverse discrimination
upon losing opportunities
to minorities or women.
No woman or minority wants to be hired simply because she is a woman or he is a minority. But without such affirmative action programs, they might not be hired simply because she is a woman or he is a minority.
Weinberger is right
It's hard to cast Caspar Weinberger as a dove, but in the debate over the use of retributive force against countries that back terrorism, he has assumed that role.
More power to him.
Weinberger, as secretary of defense, might be expected to be out for blood, but he has argued for the more sane approach of caution.
A hastily planned strike, he has warned, would kill the innocent along with the guilty and undermine U.S. interests in the Middle East. There also is the danger that retaliatory strikes would inflame a desire for revenge among terrorists, which could result in more deaths of innocent Americans.
Added to Weinberger's considerations is the knowledge that in violating international law with the use of such force, the United States would be as guilty as the countries that back terrorism.
tacks on Rome and Vienna, State Department sources have revealed, Shultz urged President Reagan to strike at targets in Libya.
On the other hand, Secretary of State George Shultz, the official who is supposed to stand for diplomacy, has argued for a tough U.S. stand against terrorism. After the terrorist at-
This in-house fighting among Cabinet members dwarfs the vacillation in the White House on the issue.
Last year, Reagan appointed a special task force, headed by Vice President George Bush, to examine terrorism. There was hope expressed that the task force would define what form of retribution might be appropriate, but apparently that hasn't happened.
Reagan finally took a stand on the issue when he opted for economic sanctions against Libya rather than military solutions. Let's hope he sticks with Weinberger on this one.
The report won't be made public until next month, but Bush aides are saying that it neither rules out nor supports the use of retributive force.
Peace-loving countries should not stoop to the use of retaliatory strikes. Getting an eye for an eye isn't worth the deaths of innocent people.
Madonna reviving sexual revolution
Mention the word feminism on campus today and you are most likely to produce evasion from the student population lest its proponents be aligned with those bra-burning women of the 1970s.
Curiously, this connection comes from a most unlikely source — a female rock/movie star who makes black lace and a crucifix her trademarks. From the discotheques of New York City, Madonna's career makes women's sexuality a modern-day topic.
it is a much quieter campus in 1986, now that the Reagan administration has had six long years to make conservatism a badge worth displaying.
Evidence of her influence can be found daily in almost all classroom.
But whether or not one chooses to acknowledge feminism, there is at least one visible marker that KU women have not totally forsaken the ideal of sexual equality, although they probably won't call it feminism.
Jennifer Roblez
Staff columnist
Who else could make women's underwear, including bras, a fashionable statement about what it means to be a woman today?
The answer, though, is becoming more than a choice in fashion.
Madonna is the 1980s' version of the sexual revolution.
In a May 27, 1985 interview with Time magazine, Madonna said, "To call me an anti-feminist is ludicrous. Some people have said that I'm setting women back 30 years. Well, I think in the '50s, women weren't ashamed of their bodies. I think they luxuriated in their sexuality and being strong in their femininity.
"I think that is better than hiding and saying, 'I'm strong,' just like
a man.' Women aren't like men. They do things that men can't do.'
Whether one approves or disapproves of Madonna's music or fashion, she raises a question that is the cornerstone of feminism: Why should a woman's sex keep her from achieving political, economic and social equality with men?
Perhaps not since Kate Millett's Sexual Politics appeared in 1969 has today's woman had a chance to review what more committed women have known all along — that one's sex is a category loaded with implications beyond the mere biological.
According to Millett, "What goes largely unexamined, often even unacknowledged (yet is institutionalized nonetheless) in our social order, is the birthright priority whereby males rule females."
She also writes, "However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion remains nevertheless
as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power."
This is the same sexual domain that Madonna has turned upside down with her brazen sexuality that seems to signify sexiness and freedom at the same time.
10 some. Madonna's way of life may not qualify as feminism, but the significance of her image on society certainly confronts many stereotypes. The biggest of these is that to be sexy, to be a woman, means living a subordinate life.
The Madonna personality is contrary to subordination, and her success is obvious proof that many find it appealing enough to imitate.
But none of this is new. The ideal of sexual liberation is as old as the Victorian age. No matter how you "dress it up," it's still the same struggle.
Suing becoming big business in U.S.
"I'll sue!"
It's heard all the time in the United States, and frequently practiced. In fact, it seems to have become America's favorite pastime.
Our universities are producing more lawyers than we'll ever need, and the overflow has to go somewhere. And lawsuits are an ever-increasing social norm.
You can be sued for just about anything these days. Some examples:
In 1970, a San Francisco woman was awarded $50,000 because she claimed a cable car accident transformed her into a nymphomaniac.
In 1978, a California man sued his date when she failed to show up. He sued for "breach of oral contract." His lawyer said his client was "not the type of man to take standing up lying down." The man lost the suit.
Two Chinese organizations are suing director Michael Cimino for $100 million because they say the movie "Year of the Dragon" unfairly portrays Chinese-Americans. They also want the movie banned — something called censorship.
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McDonald's Corporation is being sued by the families of the victims who were stained by crazed gunman James Huberty, last year, in a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California. In that incident 21 people were slain before Huberty was killed by police.
Victor Goodpasture
Staff columnist
The plaintiffs argue that McDonald's didn't provide adequate protection to its customers. And if that wasn't enough, defendants in the case are the police department, the mayor, the phone company, a television helicopter pilot, a gun manufacturer and a gun magazine. The reasoning is that somebody must be liable.
Staff columnist
In fact, the suing business has expanded so rapidly that lawyers are now suing each other.
Newsweek reported last semester that lawyers are abandoning the old ethic that lawyers don't attack one another. The magazine said, "In part, the increase may be due to the growth in the number of lawyers."
This situation has created a whole new type of lawyer — one who defends a lawyer from lawsuits filed by other lawyers.
A current bizarre lawsuit, in San Francisco, deals with a well-known personal injury lawyer, Melvin Belli. Last year, a jury returned a $5.8 million verdict against his law firm for negligence. But Belli has come back with an even more bizzarre strategy — he will sue the lawyers in his own firm who he says made the mistakes.
Lawyers have always been especially tricky people. They can come up with the most ridiculous defenses for people who have committed horrible crimes.
In fact, the suing business has expanded so rapidly that lawyers are now suing each other.
One such case is the famous "Twinkie defense," where politician Dan White murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city council member Harvey Milk in 1978.
White's lawyers claimed that White was under the influence of junk food, and thus wasn't responsible for his actions. The jury bought the argument and White received a five-year sentence.
In the Dec. 9, 1985 issue of Insight magazine, new studies published by the National Education Association and conducted by major U.S. and Canadian research universities "give substantial . . . support to the assertion that sugar neither causes hyperactivity nor triggers hyperactive episodes."
Lawyers, again, have pulled the wool over the eyes of justice.
Only hours after the chemical leak in Bhopal, India — which killed 2,000
and injured 200,000 — was announced,
lawyers were flying to India to get their hand in the Union Carbide
cookie jar.
The pride of America — international ambulance chasers.
It was at this point when used car salesmen and pawnshop dealers rose above lawyers on the ethics scale.
above lawyers on the ethics scale.
Face it, lawyers never were
interested in justice. Just "my client
right or wrong."
No one denies that everyone has the right to a fair trial with a competent lawyer. But when a murderer is set free on a technicality and the lawyer has neatly lined his own pocket, the public cries for justice.
A recent column in the Washington Inquirer reported about a California burglar who fell through a school skylight and was paralyzed. He wore $260,000 from the school. The column nist noted: "The moral is to burgl, home and businesses where you might develop a good lawsuit."
Jean Giraudoux wrote in "The Madwoman of Chaillot," "You're an attorney. It's your duty to lie, conceal and distort everything, and slander everybody."
In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Par II,
the butcher says, "The first thirst we do, we kill all the lawyers."
A bit extreme, because if that wre to happen, who would defend m when I suggest Green Hall be turned into a shelter for obsessive Twinkie eaters?
News staff.
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Business staff
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Mailbox
In defense of rally
This letter is in response to the letter "Rally tactics insulting" (Kansas, Jan. 28). I, too, was "forced to walk through demonstrators who had crowded onto the walkways in front of the Kansas Union." Aside from the fact that the participants were holding signs or holding out pamphlets for those interested to take, it was no different from the small crowds in front of the Union on any day.
The writer spoke of her distaste for pictures of bloody fetuses and the involvement of young children in rallies. If a person is not offended by the fact that people are murdered on demand for the mothers' convenience, then that person should not be offended by a pictorial reminder of
their choice. (I would like to add that "convenience" is the only abortion need being served since the law was changed, since they were allowed previously in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life was endangered.)
As to any "lack of judgment and ethics" demonstrated by parents who involve their children in rallies, the writer might be reminded that part of being a parent is instilling in that child the beliefs and values that one holds. Teaching their children to act upon their beliefs and live up to their social responsibilities should not be seen as a fault.
Lastly, I would like to mention that violent responses from persons unable to cope with issues and their emotions are present in every aspect of society, and should be view as an
Elizabeth Van Mol
Kansas City, Kah. sophomore
individual problem and not condoned by the group with which it is affiliated.
Racial I.D. not needed
Why did the Kansan identify the participants by color? Since all of the participants are in custody, such identification cannot aid in their
Under the byline of Brian Whepley, the Jan. 28 Kansan carried a rather muddled front-page story about a white gunshot victim, a black stabbing victim, a second black man whose involvement was unknown, plus one eyewitness and nine Lawrence police officers assigned to the case, all of unknown color or race.
apprehension.
Indeed, nowhere else on the front page is anyone identified by color. And an article on page seven, dealing with a multi-vicifum assault case, makes no mention of the race of the accused, n of the victims.
Perhap e Kansan wished to resurrect an old tradition in U. journalism which has faded always identify blacks whenever crime or violence is involved. I hope that this is not true. When part of full description — height, weight build, color of eyes and hair — identity of color is appropriate.
In the circumstances of the Jan. article, however, it is not. I believe that such specious racial designations deserve to be buried along wit Jim Crow.
David M. Katzma professor of histo