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Friday, February 19, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The KKK Issue Emotion must be put aside in question of free speech
It is an issue that exploded this week into cries of injustice and insult.
Today, three faculty members will decide whether to allow two members of the Ku Klux Klan to appear on KJHK's public forum show, JayTalk 91.
However, this issue must be resolved by putting emotions aside and applying a standard rule that discriminates against no one — no matter what his race, religion or viewpoint — and defends his right to speak freely as guaranteed by the Constitution.
The show's purpose is twofold: first, to expose the public to diverse views and to provide them with an opportunity to respond; second, to provide a forum for groups to present their views to the public.
It is simply a democratic exercise of free speech.
Its value is that public issues are discussed and acknowledged. The public is given the right to take a position having heard viewpoints directly from those who espouse them. Suppressing the views and denying public scrutiny does not resolve issues. It can drive them underground, where they may be shrouded in mystery and prosper through public ignorance.
Unfortunately, it appears that opponents mistook the invitation as an endorsement, rather than as a public forum.
Had they applied the Constitutional standard of equal opportunity and free speech, they would have seen that this was not a personal attack on a specific group but a presentation of a viewpoint that is repugnant but exists and cannot be ignored.
It was a classic case of mistaking the messenger for the message.
Instructors should control which resources they use
Instructors have the right to choose which resources they will use in their classrooms. And no specific group or specific interest should dictate what resources are appropriate.
A KU journalism instructor had the right to use members of the Ku Klux Klan as a resource in his class. Those opposed to the Klan members' visit should not be allowed to screen this instructor's choice of teaching materials.
By allowing his class to interview two members of the Kansas City-area Missouri Knights, the instructor intended to expose his students to extremists, teach them how to interview such people and help them to recognize extremist groups' manipulative tactics.
The instructor was attempting to prepare his students for life as professional reporters. And preparing students for life outside the classroom is the purpose of education.
It would be irresponsible for the teacher to do anything less than ready his students for the real world. Using the KKK as a resource in this preparation was not an endorsement of its philosophy. The objective was purely educational.
It is wrong for groups to interfere with the use of an educational resource, whether it is books, films or people. It is also wrong to assume that students are susceptible to every view they are exposed to.
College students can determine for themselves which views to accept and which to reject. By controlling classroom discussion, special interests would take away that right to decide.
Special interest groups have no place setting classroom agendas. That right lies only with the instructor and his academic department.
The editorial board
The editorial board consists of Alison Young, Todd Cohen, Alan Player, Jody Dickson, Russell Gray, Katy Monk and Van Jenerette.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
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Truth of justice speaks for itself
am disturbed.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan have been invited to speak on our University-operated radio station.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig says that suppression of views, however bizarre or repugnant, has no place on a university campus. On the surface, this sounds just and fair, but is it?
Should we allow those who agree with murder or rape to espouse their beliefs on campus? Justice cries out for the protection of human rights. That's why we have laws that prohibit any behavior that could basically violate or harm others.
I must admit, as a black American, that I have no real knowledge of the precepts and laws of the Ku Kux Klan, but from their past actions, I think that I could say that they do not respect human
in the long run, this kind of thinking does affect just blacks. Whenever there is an idea that
Cheryl E. Jackson
Guest Columnist
violates the rights given to each human being, eventually everyone will be affected.
Some would say, "Doesn't each man have the right to believe in whatever he chooses?" The very nature of justice, however, requires us to draw the line at some things that men might believe is right, if that belief leads to actions that are potentially dangerous to the livelihood of others. Truth is absolute, and it cannot be defined or given to interpretation. When we come to a point that we are ready to redefine it, it is no longer truth because it will not conform to the dilution of personal opinion.
Should we allow someone who believes in sexually abusing children and then murdering them to spread his beliefs on the radio? Why not?
The nature of human rights dictates that even "freedom" has boundaries. We have gotten to the point where our belief in absolutes is becoming more difficult to believe, and we have human rights, leaving them a matter of opinion?
Should we give vent to those who would threaten humanity? Where should we draw the line in toleration? We must ultimately answer to Justice, the protector of human rights. It is the truth that every law is founded upon. I think we must guard it and be intolerant of anything that violates it. You can't argue with the truth of justice, which protects human life. If you do, the truth becomes a lie, and the value of human life is open to interpretation.
Cheryl E. Jackson is a Lawrence resident and a member of staff personnel at the University of Kansas.
Difficult courses should be justified
Alison Young's editorial "Making proper class choices is the true key to education" not only misrepresented my course but completely missed the major issues in modern education. The information that could be taught in a university is doubling every decade or less, and we are moving into a highly technological world. The major concerns of those interested in maintaining a quality university education have to be those of increasing efficiency of instruction (amount of significant material learned per unit effort by a student) and preparing students for a technically oriented world.
The quality of a university education under these conditions could be at least triplied if, for example, the difficulty of most sociology, psychology, history and English courses (excluding those teaching writing skills) was reduced by two-thirds and the student effort saved was devoted to reducing current event illiteracy, computer illiteracy, science illiteracy and technology illiteracy. This would represent both an increase in efficiency and a response to an increasing technological society.
Thus, the real intellectual junk food is courses
Maynard W. Shelly
Guest Columnist
such as most of those on Plato and Shakespeare because, like greasy hamburgers, they are difficult to digest intellectually and once learned, add little, in our current world, to the student's intellectual nourishment. Certainly, with the growing menace of AIDS, a well-taught course on human sexuality is more important to a student's education than any offering on Plato or Shakespeare.
The greatest con-job of this century has been convincing students, parents and university administrators that courses like those in Plato and Shakespeare are essential to the core of a good college education. They are, especially today, much less important than learning a computer language, learning something about artificial intelligence, acquiring an appreciation
of modern science and learning about those events shaping our lives. The professional schools arose because the tradition of merely sounding intelligent rather than being intelligent could no longer be tolerated by those training students for careers in, for example, business or engineering.
I believe that courses in the humanities and the soft sciences are very important. Indeed, we I not so busy, I would greatly enjoy sitting in on a course in medieval history. I have published poetry, as well as taken part in poetry reading contests, among other, similar activities. But I do not believe that such courses can be classified as being essential nor be made so difficult as to reduce the time a student has to devote to mathematics, biochemistry or the acquisition of special skills like accounting. The important skill is writing, but there are difficult courses, as the editorial claimed, but none those that can justify their difficulty and those that cannot. Most of those in the humanities (excluding foreign language courses) and the soft sciences cannot justify their being difficult.
Maynard W. Shelly is a professor of psychology
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Defend human rights
I would like to respond to Mahmoud Ali's guest column that appeared in the Feb. 15 issue of the Kansan. I agree with everything he said, but I have some additional comments.
State Department closed the PLO's U.N. observer mission in Washington. The peace plan proposed by the United States calls for the participation and approval of the PLO. Obviously, the State Department is not serious about peace.
First of all, U.S. foreign policy concerning the Palestinian problem is an exercise in contradiction. At the same time that U.S. envoy Richard Murphy was promoting the initiative for a new peace plan in the Middle East, the
Secondly, the U.S. Congress and State Department continually refer to the PLO as a terrorist organization, although the Palestinians unfailingly have voiced their support for the PLO as their official representative. Why are the contras "freedom fighters" but the Palestinians "terrorists"?
The Israeli government is guilty of state-sponsored terrorism, but the U.S. continues to give more than $3 billion annually to fund this terrorism. Just last week, two Israeli soldiers were arrested for beating four Palestinian
youths and burying them alive with a bulldozer. The soldiers ordered the bulldozer operator to run over them, but the order was refused. Fortunately, the youths were rescued by witnesses before they suffocated, according to CNN News.
Finally, as Americans, we need to be more responsible for the actions of our government. What difference does it make where racism and oppression is practiced; whether here in the U.S., in South Africa or in the Israeli occupied territories? Wherever it happens, we have a responsibility to defend the rights of all human beings. Palestinians are no less human than the Israelis. They only are asking for what any human being has a right to . . . the right to life, and a homeland and peace.
Beth Wiens
Council Grove graduate student
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