University Daily Kansan / Thursday, February 18, 1988
9
SenEx agrees with KJHK show delay
Officials not involved in KKK decision
By Christine Martin
Kansan staff writer
The postponement of a program on KJHJ featuring two Ku Klux Klan members was not an abridgment of freedom of expression, members of the University Senate Executive Committee said at a meeting yesterday.
Sharon Bass, associate professor of journalism and SenEx member, said in a report that the decision to postpone the program was made independently by faculty members who have served as a faculty member University of Kansas administration.
"Nothing seems to be out of order," Bass said.
Bass said that faculty members were concerned about an article published in the Kansas City Times on Tuesday that said the postponement of the program was made by University officials. She wanted to know if that was the case.
Bass said that the advisers to KJHK, Adrienne Rivers-Waribagha and John Broholm, both assistant professors of journalism, postponed the program because there was no spokesman to represent an opposing
view. The advisers also wanted to allow for a more thoughtful and organized approach to the program.
Bass said that members of SenExi met Tuesday to discuss the situation.
"We met because members of faculty expressed some concern about how this was being handled," Bass said.
SenEx members agreed at the meeting that SenEx should have been informed earlier.
Bass said in the report that SenEx should have been included in communication and decision-making once it reached the University level. Faculty members turn first to the elected members of governance for explanation and interpretation of administration decisions and press articles about events on campus, she said.
Evelyn Swartz, professor of curriculum and instruction and SenEx chairman, said that SenEx would arrange to meet with the Human Relations Committee to discuss how to deal with sensitive race issues. She said that it would also ask representatives of the community to meet with the committee and with SenEx.
When Ptacek learned that Jones had invited the Klansmen, he called Jones for confirmation, planning to use that information in his broadcast. Ptacek said Jones told him not to announce where and when the Klansmen would be speaking because he didn't want the class session to develop into a public incident.
KJHK
Continued from p. 1
Platek had by then begun trying to get someone to oppose the Klansmen on the show, he said. He called Lt. Jeanne Longaker of KU police to advise her that the Klansmen would be appearing on his program.
He also talked with Vernell Spearman, director of minority affairs, to obtain the names of people who could oppose the Klan on the show.
Sam Adams
The Klan had intended to come to do recruiting. We should not serve to facilitate that.'
But no faculty advisers knew of his actions until late afternoon Friday, said Mike Kautsch, dean of journalism.
On Friday afternoon, Ptacek talked with John Broholm, KJHK faculty news adviser, about his plans. Ptacek said that in the past he had never had meetings with faculty members about a show before it aired but that this time he was concerned because he was dealing with a sensitive subject.
By Friday, Kautsch said, the black community had received information that the Klan had been invited on campus. And they were angry.
'T.
associate professor of journalism
On Saturday, Ptacek attended a
meeting at the American Baptist Center with several black ministers including the Rev. Reo Barbee, pastor of the American Baptist Center; and David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs; Judith Ramaley, executive vice chancellor; Ron Olin, Lawrence chief of police, Buford Watson, city manager, and faculty members Broholm and Adrienne Rivers-Waribagha, both assistant professors of journalism.
Broholm and Rivers-Warlaghia decided Sunday that because no person with an opposing viewpoint would agree to be on the show, the program was unchanged if it aired Monday. They postponed the program indefinitely.
By then, black leaders had initiated a letter-writing and telephone-calling campaign to get state legislators to ask the University to cancel the program and to keep the Klansmen off the campus.
Calls were made to the offices of Gov. Mike Hayden; State Sen. Wint Winter, R-Lawrence; State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-Lawrence; and the executive director of the Board of Regents. Calls were also made to the offices of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and Sen. Nancy Kassebaum.
Branson said she received more than 30 phone calls between Sunday night and Tuesday regarding the Klan's planned appearance.
"Some people were really worried this would be a spark in creating hostility."
Some faculty members content that inviting the Klansmen on the radio program and into the classroom was a mistake from the beginn-
But Jones said that the purpose of his classes is to teach the class how to learn extremities.
And Kautsch said, "The irony is that the class presentation is supposed to expose extremism for what it is to help minority groups."
Adams said, "It's not a good subject for an interview for a class that hasn't studied the Klan."
Jones also responded to a letter sent to the Lawrence Journal-World that said the teaching of racism on state property must be controlled.
"I'm strenuously offended by anybody who would interpret this as the answer," he said.
Jones said that he recognized the fact that the Klansmen would try to recruit members.
"They recruit everywhere they go. It has to be expected. But they're going to be laughed off campus if they try," he said.
Jones decided Saturday to postpone the Klan's appearance in his class but said that they would attend after the end of February.
Yesterday, KJHK staff and advisers had a meeting at the Kansas Union and announced that the program would air as soon as Pacek could prepare a balanced presentation.
But at least one of them said the affair may have affected the radio station's image.
"A lot of people around town are now seeing us as a supremacist station," said Clayton Reid, Gainesville, Fla., junior.
Kansan staff members Stephen Wade and Craig Sands contributed information to this story.
Protest
Continued from p. 1
We have to protect them. It's a terribly delicate issue. The faculty have to feel entirely free. If we can achieve that, we could win, regardless of which decision they make."
Jones invited the two members of the Klan to his reporting class to give his students experience in live interviews of extremist groups.
J. Allen Moran, exalted cyclops of the Missouri Knight and one of the Klimsman
invited to campus, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the Klan's First Amendment rights were being suppressed.
"If we're still invited, we'll still come," he said. "They fear our message, not violence. We are fifth-generation Klan, the new electric Klan. We fight with the truth, not fists."
Moran also said his group would like to help students form a white student union at KU.
Jones has said that his invitation to the
Klan members was unrelated to the KJHK program and that his purpose was not to help the Klan recruit.
Jones, in a telephone interview before the meeting, said that he had no intention of canceling the Klan visit to his class.
"I regret the fact that some blacks feel insulted. I did not intend to insult, but when they turn around and call me a racist, I resent that. I'll be damned if I cancel the class," Jones said.
Jones, who has covered extremist groups for the Kansas City Star and has written a book exposing such groups, said that he was trying to prepare his class for situations they might face on the job.
"I'm not teaching racism," Jones said. "The First Amendment was created for people like Klausman. If we can't accommodate the extremists in the First Amendment, then there is no point in having it. It's there for people with far-out ideas," Jones said.
Vickie Thomas, University general counsel, said that academic freedom in the classroom was as important an issue as the First Amendment.
"The method of teaching in a classroom is left up to the instructor. The institution can restrain the instructor, but that sort of decision must be strictly scrutinized and held up to a stringent test on why that restraint was imposed," Thomas said.
Cubans
Continued from p. 8
"But the Justice Department has overall review of the hearings," Thompson said.
deportation status.
A panel of representatives from the INS reviews each prisoner at a hearing and decides whether he should be released, deported or kept in prison.
The panel then sends recommendations to the national office in Washington D.C., which either puts the prisoners on a waiting list for a halfway house or puts them on
Hearing results will not be available for six weeks to two months, and only the detainee will be notified. Hemphill said. The Cubans were given postcards so that the Atlanta coalition would be notified of the results.
Volunteers representing the Cubans said that INS officials were more cooperative than they expected them to be.
Marc Becker, a KU graduate student, volunteered to represent the Cubans and was used as a translator.
INS could not be reached for comment. Becker said the Cubans cooperated with the volum-
"I was surprised that the INS was as humane as they were to us," Becker said. "I think one of the reasons was that they wanted to avoid adverse publicity so they went out of their way to be accommodating."
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