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Thursday, April 2, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
A fashion statement
It started this morning. It might not have been much, just a slight hesitation for some. But for others it was a big decision. Whether to risk social branding, either as a bigot or a queer.
That's right. Today is "Wear Blue Jeans if you're Gay Day." The event is sponsored by Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas as part of Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week. Each year, Blue Jean Day offers the students and staff of the University of Kansas a valuable lesson — that prejudice against homosexuals is every bit as senseless as prejudice against women or minorities.
What was the decision that troubled these people? Whether to wear blue jeans.
But instead of thinking about the real meaning of the day, many will spend the day complaining about people trying to
tell them what to wear. Others will sit around and wonder about passessy (are they or aren't they?).
But the big question of the day should be, "Does it really matter?" The answer is a resounding NO.
"Can you really tell if someone is gay just because they wear jeans?" Certainly not. "Can you tell if someone is prejudiced against someone because they aren't wearing jeans?" Possibly.
GLSOK hit upon a great idea with Blue Jean Day. Those who make a big deal of the day are the ones who are most in need of the lesson it offers. It is not publicity from the day that organizers are after, actually it is a feeling of anathy.
So if you feel guilty and self-conscious because the only pants you had to wear were jeans, good. Maybe you will learn from it.
In Johnson's footsteps
Monte Johnson's resignation as athletic director last week may have come as a surprise to some, but it shouldn't have.
When Johnson took the job in 1982 he said it wasn't a career move. He came to do a job, and what a job he did.
Contributions to the Williams Fund have doubled to $2.5 million since the year prior to Johnson's appointment. When Johnson arrived, he fired basketball coach Ted Owens and football coach Don Fambrough and replaced them with Larry Brown and Mike Gottfried. Johnson later hired Bong Valesente when Gottfried resigned to take the football coaching job at the University of Pittsburgh.
Johnson was behind the construction of Anschutz Sports Pavilion. Improvements also have been made at Memorial Stadium, a new locker room for the men's basketball team has been added, a $115,000
renovation project at Quigley Field is nearing completion and new seats in Allen Field House have been installed.
Johnson made quite an impact on the Athletic Department in a short time. His biggest strides were made with the men's basketball team.
The football program needs someone to have the same effect on it as Johnson had on the basketball program. Nonrevenue programs also are in need of some attention.
With Brown and the success of the basketball team, that program will be able to sustain itself. The search committee for a new athletic director now needs to concern itself with other problems that face the department.
These problems won't go away immediately, but the University of Kansas now needs someone to make them a top priority.
It's a rah deal
Yes, there is a problem with the tight uniforms and dance
It's a battle of morals. One group is offended by uniforms they think aren't becoming of young ladies. The other says the uniforms are perfectly acceptable and appropriate.
What it boils down to is this: The Crisom Girls have been told by the KU Athletic Department that they no longer can perform in unitard outfits because a group of people wishes to impose their warped morals on the rest of us.
Apparently, the one-piece leotards are acceptable for exercise and for dancing, but not if that dancing takes place at a sporting event. Also, modern dance moves are art if done on stage, but when a spirit squad performs them, they're transformed into a lewd "bump-and-grind."
moves. But the problem is in the minds of these self-made cheerleading critics.
The unitards and movements are common to cheerleading squads at many other colleges and universities. Ann Pinkerton, coach and founder of the Crimson Girls squad, said most squads that were competitive in cheering wore unitards.
If we ban the unitaris because they are too revealing for the squad, must we ban the use of similar tights by the track team? Should we ask the other cheerleaders to wear long skirts that aren't as prone to fly up during routines?
Maybe the solution to the problem would be for these people to spend a little time watching the cheering next time the cheerleaders perform.
News staff
News staff
Frank Hansel ... Editor
Jennifer Benjamin ... Managing editor
Juli Warren ... News editor
Brian Kaberline ... Editorial editor
Sandra Engelland ... Campus editor
Mark Siebert ... Sports editor
Diane Dulmeither ... Photo editor
Bill Skeet ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Lisa Weems ... Business manager
Bonnie Hardy ... Ad director
Denise Stephens ... Retail sales manager
Kelly Scherter ... Campus sales manager
Duncan Calhoun ... Marketing manager
Lori Copple ... Classified manager
Jennifer Lumianski ... Production manager
David Nixon ... National sales manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Opinions
A different view on the death penalty
It wasn't easy coming to this decision. It took me many years to realize that the death penalty is a merciful punishment.
David Nicholson Guest shot
Before I entered a maximum-security penitentiary at the ripe age of 20, I would have denied vehemently that some day I could support the legalized taking of another man's life. It seemed preposterous to me then that a nation, which claimed to be civilized, could support the termination of a human life in the name of justice.
It is a fact that if a man is caged long enough and he ceases to be a man, you've created a monster. Ask the scores of guards and inmates who have fallen victim to some knife-wielding madman if this is not true. Ask the large number of death-row inmates who have parlayed a sentence with a release date into a death sentence if this is not so.
This is not another in the long list of "bleeding heart" essays on why society is responsible for the poor stiffs who are waiting to be strapped into an electric chair, or strapped down on a gurney or into a chair to await lethal injection. Rather, this is a plan to solve the problem and not merely treat the symptom.
However, wiser men than I have already discovered that capital punishment not only was justifiable, but was merciful in most cases.
While the controversy continues over rehabilitation versus punishment, one important point is being overlooked: If a man is judged to be so dangerous that he must be locked up for the rest of his life, do him a favor and destroy him. Without question it is cheaper, more practical and far less cruel than long years of incarceration.
Society's moral principles and practices shouldn't be questioned when a clearly incorrigible murderer's warped life is terminated. Capital punishment also should be applied in a few cases other than murder.
But let's be firm enough in our convictions to take an active part in the entire process of eliminating these individuals. Let's look them in the eye as they go out, so to speak. Years ago, public executions were commonplace. They took on an almost carnival atmosphere, attended by the young and old alike. It wasn't uncommon to hear a parent say to their child, "See, that's what
happens when you break the law!"
I think you will agree that the thought of watching a man flop at the end of a rope is chilling. Seeing a lethal substance pass through a needle and into a man's arm while he is strapped onto a gurney might be easier to witness, but the lesson learned is the same. There are crimes that you should forfeit your life for committing.
With the aid of television, such lessons could reach the ever-growing number of potential offenders on a mass scale. And with the number of death row inmates pushing 2,000 nationwide, it would be possible to "teach a lesson" every day for years. Just think, somewhere a "teacher" could hold his first and only class if we will pull out all of the restrictions on carrying out "the will of the people."
While doing time in three different penitentiaries, I have seen dozens of men for whom capital punishment would be a blessing. I'm not at all unsure that I shouldn't include myself in this legion. However, I still harbor some faint hope of "hitting the streets" some day.
They trudge blankly from cellhouse to chow hall and back day after day, month after month and year after year. Their sentence is a weight that crushes the life out of them.
reducing them to a suking lump of hatred that's seeking an outlet. The bottom line is this: Too many years down makes Johnny a sick boy.
As I have said, when I was younger I questioned the concept of capital punishment, but years of living behind bars have answered all my questions. "The old sage Zapata said it was better to live in prison still be appreciated than endure the sor-corrowing existence of long-term incarceration."
Many death row inmates undoubtedly will have a different view on this subject. But even their outlook is changing. In recent years, more and more of those sentenced to death seem to be waking up. They are stopping their appeal processes and asking to be relieved permanently of their endless boredom and uncertainty. To be released from the relentless rage that roars and tears at the foundation of their souls, making every day a year, every month a lifetime. Lifetime after lifetime for eternity.
Please keep in mind that this is one person's opinion and thank you for your indulgence.
David Nicholson is in sonatory confinement at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing.
University Daily Kansai
UHLG
Mailbox
Black dropout rate has many causes
The March 25 issue of the Kansan featured a story titled, "High black drop-out rate concerns KU officials." The front page story began by addressing the problem of black students leaving the University of Kansas and deteriorated into a collection of outrageous innuendoes and vicious, unsubstantiated statements.
As a black freshman, I was appalled at the statements made by faculty members in the story. They claimed that black students were leaving the University because of cultural insurrection, and here, the country would be run by "a group of functional illiterates," referring to blacks.
No University officials were mentioned in the story, but the headline stated that it was KU officials who were concerned about the problem. Also, black students, who supposedly had the problem, were not interviewed. Instead, two associate professors of African studies were asked to explain the reasons that a high number of black students had left the University.
summed up the problem of blacks leaving the University by saying, "Black students aren't familiar with the keys to success." Then she said that the black attrition rate was caused by a cultural problem, and that black students had a "different" mentality toward education. She did not bother to elaborate on her theories, and readers were left to fill in the blanks about what this "different mentality" was.
One of the associate professors
The two associate professors may be authorities on African cultures, but I fail to see how this qualifies them to make such broad generalizations about the problems of black students at a university in the heart of the United States.
Later in the story, the professors said that black parents were too unintelligent to understand the importance of an education for their children. They said that black households didn't contain sets of encyclopedias or dictionaries. They said that minorities were functional illiterates who were a threat to national security. They said that minorities would one day take over the country, establish communism and destroy the institutions upon which this country was built.
I was angered and hurt by what the people interviewed in the story implied. First, their comments were made with total disregard to the feelings of black students, and the harm it might do to black-white relations on campus.
Second, to say that all minorities are functional illiterates is the most unjust and outrageous thing I have ever heard.
Third, the article was an insult to the parents of black students who are paying for their children to attend a good university. My parents began saving money to pay for my college education the day I was born. There were many colleges and numerous dictionaries in the small library in our home.
And finally, in response to the statement that the white population will be substantially reduced, I would ask, where are they going to RR?
Statements made in the story also implied that black students were not in the mainstream of life at the University and had separated themselves from the rest of the University population.
Blacks are highly visible on campus. We are represented in athletics
and on the cheerleading squad. Black students march not only in the marching band, but also for the causes that they believe in. They also participate in the Greek system, give and attend parties, and conduct service projects.
I think the Kansan was irresponsible because it did nothing to clarify the reasons that blacks are leaving the University.
The story didn't say that some black students who left the University didn't permanently drop out. Many students leave to transfer to other universities. I am considering leaving KU. And if I decide to leave, it will be because of stories that discourage black students, reinforce negative stereotypes and promote apathy toward other human beings. These were the most frightening aspects of the story.
I hope that in the future, common decency will prevent other such stories from being published in the Kansan, which serves ALL students.
Lynda Bassa Raytown, Mo., freshman
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed