4
Monday, April 25, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Minority hiring in the NFL: Chiefs' plan leads the pack
The football season has yet to start, but the Kansas City Chiefs are leading the nation. The category is not touchdowns or vardage but hiring — minority hiring.
Last week, a year after the NAACP began campaigning for the establishment of such programs in all professional sports teams, the Chiefs became the first NFL team to institute a program to boost minority hiring.
It's not a radical program; and it's not a great leap forward from what they've already been doing. But the program emphasizes the Chiefs' commitment to continue hiring and doing business with minorities and sets up four internships within the Chiefs' business structure for minority college students.
It is, as NAACP national president Benjamin Hooks said, a statement of the Chiefs' spirit of cooperation.
In a way, however, it seems almost too small a thing to celebrate. Surely, 35 years after the civil rights movement got under way, the country is ready for more than this.
But it takes only a quick look around to show that, indeed, this is as far as we've gotten in all those years.
Professional sports teams are some of the worst offenders in the non-hiring of minorities for management positions, a situation especially ironic considering that so many of the country's finest athletes are black. The Chiefs' program is a step — a small step — in the right direction. For taking that step, they should be heartily commended and encouraged to take another, and another.
They have set a precedent that every other NFL team — indeed, every professional sports team — should rush to follow.
Katy Monk for the editorial board
GTAs deserve tuition waiver
Three cheers for a Board of Regents proposal to waive 100 percent of tuition for graduate teaching assistants. Such a policy would be timely and beneficial for KU and the other Regents schools.
The current policy of waiving only 75 percent of tuition keeps KU out of financial competition for many of the best GTAs. With enrollment steadily increasing, the role of teaching assistants is becoming more and more important; thus, the importance of having a high-quality GTA staff is also on the rise.
Many departments at KU field a high number of assistants to teach laboratories or whole classes. Therefore, a large part of the education of students in those departments rests in the hands of GTAs.
The tuition waiver, if approved, will work hand in hand with the Margin of Excellence plan increasing stipends for GTAs. In combination, the two programs can begin to close the gap between Kansas schools and other universities.
The Regents will decide whether to adopt the 100 percent tuition waiver at a meeting in May. For the sake of their educations, KU students should stand behind the plan.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board
Other Voices
Indiana students help lawyers' images
Lawyers, next to journalists, are probably the most maligned professionals in America. The image of the money-grubbing, slick-haired mountebank telling the public "you have my word on it" is as familiar to attorneys as the heartless "we need dirty laundry" cliche is to journalists.
Well, here's to shattered stereotypes. Through the efforts of a group of IU law students, a new, socially concerned side is emerging from the gang on Indiana Avenue.
The concern is over who will represent those who would otherwise go unrepresented without the aid of attorneys from public service agencies, non-profit foundations or the government.
The Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF), organized this year to give financial support to students who enter internships — usually unpaid — in public interest law, has received
usually unpaid — in public interest law, has received tremendous support from students, faculty and administrators.
Students sought to raise $10,000 in pledges from their peers to be placed in a fund that would support public interest interns for the summer of 1989. In just two weeks, they have exceeded their goal by about $1,000. Guess they're not all trying to finance that first BMW.
The Indiana Daily Student Indiana University, Bloomington
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
Todd Cohen...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...News editor
Alan Player...Editorial editor
Joseph Rebello..Campus editor
Jennifer Rowland...Planning editor
Anne Luscombe...Sports editor
Stephen Wade...Photo editor
Richard Stewart...Graphics editor
Tim Eldorn...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Kelly Scherer ... Business manager
Clark Massad ... Retail sales manager
Brad Lenhart ... Campus sales manager
Robert Hughes ... Marketing manager
Kurt Messmersmith ... Production manager
Greg Knipp ... National manager
Klaia Schmoa ... Traffic manager
Kimberly Coleman ... Classified manager
Jennelle Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and less than 200 words and must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University of Kansas, please include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and less than 700 words. The letter will be photographed.
whether the Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters and guest columns. They are brought to the Kansan newspaper, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall.
can be mailed or brought to the Kansan. For more information,
Letters, guest columns and columns are the opinion of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University Daily Kansan. Editorials are the opinion of the Kansan editorial board.
The University Daily Kansas (USPS 650-840) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 66045, during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods, and Wednesday during the summer session. Second-class postage is paid in Lawrence, Kan. 66044. Annual subscriptions by mail are $50. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118
Strufter-First Hall, Lawrence, Kanus, 66045
"MAYBE IT'S TURNING FORTY, BUT I JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE CELEBRATING THIS YEAR."
Speakes deserves his joblessness
Being a self-confessed fink discredited the former White House spokesman
I don't like seeing anyone out of work, but I didn't lapse into a funk when Larry Speakes was dumped from his $250,000 job as a front man for a New York banking house.
Technically, Speakes resigned. But he left because Merrill Lynch shoved him into the door. They were uncomfortable having an admitted lian and fink as their public relations man.
This, I believe, is an example of what the hip generation described as: "What goes around, comes around." Or maybe it's the other way. What's the most perfect invitation for a flick?
Speakes has always thought of himself as a clever fellow. Watching him perform as the White House press secretary, you could almost see him ooze self-satisfaction.
He had a way of looking down his nose at those who have the miserable assignment of covering the White House and trying to find out what the executive branch of government is bungling
Although he had never been a reporter, preferring a career as a flunky for Washington politicians, he obviously felt superior to those who earned their living by asking questions.
And to demonstrate his mental nimbleness, as he now admits, he hoked up phony lines and told the press that the President had said them.
Actually, the lines weren't especially memorable or profound. On a slow day, Jesse Jackson can come up with a dozen that are better and make them rhyme, too.
But Speakes was proud of them. So proud, in fact, that when he recently put out a book about his White House spokesman days, he couldn't bragging about putting words in Reagan's mouth.
This became news, although I don't know why.
There's nothing new about flankets composing
Mike Royko
Syndicated Columnist
sentences for politicians. Most politicians use hired speech writers. Some pay others to write entire books on which they slap their names. Before becoming president, John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for a history book without having to tan a single typewriter key.
For that matter, Speakers wasn't literate enough to write his own fink book. He paid someone to put words into understandable, although banal, form.
About the only thing that made his disclosure interesting was that Reagan said he wasn't aware that Sneakes had been making up quotes.
That meant Reagan either didn't know what he had said or, when he read his words in the newspapers, he thought that he had said them. Or that they were going to pay any attention to what the press said he said.
This, to some Washington observers, was evidence that Reagan might be "out of touch" with what is happening around him.
There's nothing shocking about that. Only recently, we were told that when Reagan meets with visiting dignitaries, aides give him little cue cards so he'll remember to say "Good morning, George" or "Welcome to the White House," or "Nice to meet you, too."
Almost from the beginning of his presidency, Reagan has been hailed as one of the most out-of-touch presidents in our history. That's been one of the secrets of his success. In a world that is too
complicated, the majority of Americans choose to be out of touch with reality. Some use drugs or booze to disconnect. Others fade into their TV sets. And with their votes, or lack of them, they said they preferred an out-of-touch leader
Being a clever fellow, though, Speakes figured that by finking about how out of touch Reagan was, and how he, Speaks, could put words in his mouth, to help get oodles of free publicity that would help sales.
And I'm sure it has. But it turns out that Speakens is surprisingly doyep for someone so
It didn't occur to him that an image-conscious outfit like Merrill Lynch might say: "Holy bottom line, we are paying this guy $250,000 a year to our spokesman. And now he's telling the world that he's a liar and a tattle-tale fink. If he'll flank on a president, how do we know he won't fink on us? Tell him to turn in his key to the executive washroom. And change the lock."
So now the clever fellow is out of work. The quick-fix publicity will subside, and in a week or two, his book will start gathering dust in the bookstores.
And Speakens will discover that $230,000-a year jobs aren't that easy to come by. It's one thing to walk out of the White House with a lot of political clout and a reputation for being able to think fast on your feet. It's something else when the most important name is that you wereacked by Merrill Lynch.
I suppose he can take out an ad. It could say something like:
"Position wanted. Top-level experience as congressional aide. White House press officer and corporate spokesman. Advanced training in finkery, back-stabbing and ingratiance."
Lots of luck. But he'd be wise to check the location of his nearest unemployment comp
KU should save cans
If the University staff, faculty and student body cooperated a little, a portion of the costs of needed repairs could be covered with very little extra effort or expense.
If some University trash canisters were labeled "For Aluminum Cans Only" and everyone used these canisters to discard pop cans, we would have problems. We sell the aluminum to a recycling center.
Instead of wasting our world's finite resources and literally throwing our money away, it is time for the University to start finding solutions for the problems it has created. Perhaps if the University as a whole would show a good-faith effort in conservation and fund-raising efforts without bleaching the students or alumni, a matching programs program
could be arranged with the Board of Regents, the Alumni Association or the state.
The most useful lesson I hope to give my students is in the ability to search for creative and practical solutions to any problems they may encounter. It is a shame that those at the University level have not yet learned this lesson.
Mary J. Rose Leawood senior
Poster issue is moot
Judging by the recent decisions by the Student Senate Elections Review Board against the Integrity coalition regarding alleged campaign violations, one could come to the conclusion that the Review Board and the Top Priority coalition have some sort of vendetta against Integrity. One would think that the resounding defeat suffered by Integrity in the Senate election would render the campaign poster issue moot. After all, three of four Integrity senators elected probably will be railroaded out of the Senate because of their
affiliation with the basketball team, as history will repeat itself.
Is it really necessary to fine Integrity? Does it matter? Probably not. If justice needs to be done, then the review board should give equal scrutiny to the complaints against the other coalitions. Then again, perhaps Top Priority people get their jolies by going out of the way to humiliate a vanquished coalition that they have already defeated soundly. Then my instincts for my refusal to vote Top Priority were correct.
By concerning itself with old business that does not matter, Top Priority may be foreshadowing its future effectiveness in the Senate. By pressing this campaign violation issue, Top Priority is unnecessarily vindictive and infringes rights of women such that can be rewarding about a hegemony of pretty faces of questionable temperament and dubious judgment.
Brent Eilerts
Hutchinson junior member of Integrity coalition
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed