Thursday February 18, 1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, Nc. 99 (USPS 650-640)
Blacks demand KKK visit be canceled
KU faculty will decide controversy
By Joel Zeff
About 75 protesters sing "We Shall Overcome" in front of the Alumni Center.
"They needed to know. They couldn't live members involved and not by the adminis- traction."
By Joel Zeff
Kansan staff writer
After a three-hour discussion last night with KU administrators, local black leaders said they would accept nothing less than a cancellation of a postponed Ku Klux Klan visit to the University of Kansas.
The Klan was scheduled to appear Monday on KJHK's radio talk show, JayTalk 91, and a journalism class yesterday. Both were postponed after black community leaders protested the visit.
"It is our position, by God's grace, we're not changing," said the Rev. William A. Dulin, president of Ecumenical Fellowship. "The matter at hand, of the postponement of the appearance of the KKK on the campus of Kansas University; the community in which we live and desire harmonious relationships.
Senex discusses KKK
p. 9.
Dulin, along with about 20 other black community leaders, met with Chancellor Gene A. Budig; Judith Ramaley, executive vice chancellor; and Mike Kautsch, dean of journalism, for more than three hours in the Adams Alumni Center last night. At least 75 protesters stood outside the alumni center during the meeting, singing gospel hymns.
"To bring such an element here at the invitation is a disgrace, and we will ask for nothing less and settle for nothing less than a cancellation of this appearance and a formal apology to the communities this has offended." be said
Ramaley said that an answer to whether the Klan visit would be canceled would be announced Friday at noon.
Budig, in a news conference after the meeting, said that he believed individuals in white supremacy groups were bizarre and repugnant.
"Their values are totally unacceptable. Furthermore, I know that faculty and students at the University of Kansas share my outrage." Budig said.
Black leaders appeared pleased after the meeting, which was closed to the press.
"The element is misunderstood," said Wayne Webb, president of the Black Student Union. "For not understanding minorities, such as blacks, hispanics and Jewish people. Misunderstanding on how we feel. You can't understand the oppression. You can't understand the suffering you can't understand our views. Our views are the Klan doesn't belong here."
"They needed to know. They couldn't live with an indefinite postponement, and not know whether the occurrence was likely or whether it would be scheduled. It was finally decided that the decision would be announced Friday." Kautsch said.
Kautsch said that during the meeting black leaders were concerned there would not be an answer to the question of whether the Klan visit would take place.
Mike Kautsch, dean of journalism, announces that a decision will be made at noon tomorrow whether representatives from the Missouri Knights will be allowed to speak to a reporting class and on KJHK's JayTalk 91.
After the news conference, Kautsch said that the decision about whether the Klan would appear on the radio show and in the reporting class would be made by the faculty
The faculty that would make the decision would be John Broholm, KJHK news faculty adviser; Adrienne Rivers-Waribagha, assistant professor of journalism; and Harry Jones, instructor in journalism.
"The three faculty will decide the issue." Kautsch said. "They can't feel intimidated, but they want to be heard."
Possible Klan visit draws mixed views
By James Buckman
Kansan staff write
At least 75 demonstrators faced the front doors of the Adams Alumni Center last night, singing gospel songs to protest the possibility of Ku Klux Klan members speaking at the University of Kansas.
Inside the center, Chancellor Gene A. Budig and other KU officials met with black ministers and black officials to discuss whether KJHK, KU's student radio station, should be allowed to have Klansmen as guests on the JayTalk 91 show.
One member of the crowd told those in attendance that they should not comment on the issue to the press, and almost no one did.
But one man, who would not give his name,
said that a wisty by the Klan to campus could
lead him.
"I don't know if you heard about what happened back in the 1960s, but there were riots here in Lawrence, black and white," he said. "The Klansmen are about racism. I think it is ridiculous for them to come up here."
Not all in attendance were opposed to a campus visit by the Klan
One black student, who also declined to be
identified, said that although he disagreed with what the Klan stood for, he thought it was wrong for religious leaders to come to campus to tell the administration what to do.
He said that KU, as an academic community, should be open to all ideas. If those ideas were wrong, he said, people would decide that for themselves.
Another member of the crowd, Patrick O'Leary, Fayetteville, Ark., graduate student, disagreed. O'Leary, who is white, said he didn't think the Klan should be allowed on campus.
"I was appalled with the chancellor's statements in the newspaper, especially the part about the University of Kansas students being intelligent enough to chose right from wrong," he said. "That is not the issue here.
"I don't believe the Nazis should be allowed to speak in Skokie, and the KKK, if they are causing a threat, there is no reason they should be piped in here.
"If there is a group on campus, they have the right to be heard like anybody else. But don't bring anybody in. That just legitimizes them."
KU police watched the peaceful demonstration from the sidewalk in front of the center.
Supremacist issue controversy escalates during week
By Rebecca I. Cisek
Kansan staff writer
What began last week as assignments for two different journalism classes has turned into an issue that has struck at the heart of the black community.
Yesterday, local black leaders met with Chancellor Gene A. Budig to protest a plan by the University radio station KJHK to invite two members of the Ku Klux Klan to appear on a radio talk show.
And all over campus, black students and faculty reacted with outrage to what they said was a massive
insult to blacks during Black History Month.
James A. Turner, director of the
James A. Turner action, said the
issue and linked Burdick.
"Obviously, if they demand that Dr. Budig deny the KKK from speaking on campus . . . well, I don't see how he could agree to abridging the rights of any group." Turner said.
Budig refused to comment yesterday.
Budig said in a prepared statement released Monday, "Suppression of views, however bizarre or repugnant, has no place on a university campus. Such a practice would violate the spirit of academic freedom and the letter of the law."
Both the KJK program and a talk by the same Klansmen to a University of Kansas reporting class have been postponed. But black leaders are demanding to know why the program wasn't canceled.
"The Klan had intended to come to do recruiting," said Sam Adams, associate professor of journalism. "He should not serve to facilitate that."
letting them come here!' It makes it even worse that they were invited during Black History Month."
Angelique Kelly, Kansas City, Kan., freshman said, "I'm totally against it. Promotion of it is immoral. Many are saying, 'God, they are
The controversy that has escalated in the past week stems from an invitation by the student host of the radio program JayTalk 91 to two students, Dennis Maloney, kleagle, and J. Allen Moran, exalted cyclops.
The host, Russ Ptacek, Wichita junior, invited the Klansmen on Feb. 11 to be guests on his show, which was scheduled to be broadcast Monday.
Ptacek, who was doing the show to fulfill requirements for an Advanced
Broadcast Reporting class, had heard about the Klansmen when they appeared in news reports about their efforts to broadcast a program promoting the Klan on a Kansas City cable channel.
He telephoned the Klansmen to invite them to be guests on his show. The Klansmen agreed and told Ptacek they were also scheduled to speak at a reporting class at KU.
Harry Jones, instructor in journalism, had talked with Maloney and Moran in early February and tentatively invited them to attend his reporting class on Wednesday. He had not been aware of Ptacek's.
interest in the Klansmen, he said.
Jones, a Kansas City Star reporter for 24 years and author of a book on extremists called "The Minutenen," had intended to give his reporting class a lesson on covering extremists.
He asked Laird Wilcox, founder of the Wilcox Collection on extremist literature at the Spencer Research Library, to talk to his class on the subject. Then, to give his students actual experience in interviewing extremists, he invited Moran and Maloney to speak in his class.
See KJHK, p. 9, col. 3
Marine officer taken captive
The Associated Press
BEIRUT — Gunmen blocked a southern highway yesterday and abducted a U.S. Marine officer serving with the United Nations peacekeeping force, bringing the number of Americans held hostage in Lebanon to nine.
U. N. and Pentagon officials identified the victim as Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky. Higgins was the chief of an observer group attached to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction, which occurred about 4:15 p.m. on the coastal highway between Lebanon's southern port of Tyre and Naqoura, the town on the Israeli border that is UNIFIL headquarters.
He said the first vehicle went around a bend in the road, and when the two observers noticed that Higgins' car was not following them, they drove back and found Higgins' station wagon abandoned.
which two other observers were traveling," U.N. spokesman Timur Goksel said.
They said the abduction occurred between Ras el-ein and Deir Qanoun, villages controlled by Justice Minister Nabih Berri's Shite Amal militia. U.N. sources said that Amal was helping UNIFIL search for Higgins.
"Higgins was driving in a U.N. jeep station wagon from Tyre to Nagoua behind a similar vehicle in
Massachusetts students end occupation
Security sources in Tyre said that two gunmen in a brown Volvo passed Higgins' car, blocked the road, forced Higgins into their car and drove north toward Tyre.
AMHERST, Mass. — A six-day occupation of a University of Massachusetts building by minority students ended yesterday after protesters and the school's chancellor agreed on reforms to correct alleged racial harassment on campus.
The Associated Press
Twenty-four other foreigners are being held captive in Lebanon, including eight Americans.
The takeover ended just before 1 p.m. when 150 minority students walked onto the steps of New Africa House and began to sing a gospel
The five-page agreement was worked out between Chancellor Merkel and the leaders of the protesters late Tuesday night after nearly four hours of negotiations.
song, then raised their fists in a victory salute.
Duffey also agreed to increased funding for the recruitment of minority students and teachers, but he rejected a demand for student involvement in faculty hiring. Duffey also consented to forming a student committee to monitor progress of the act.
The pact included a promise to change the school's student conduct code to allow suspension of students who violate the laws of racial violence or harassment.
In addition, Duffey promised
extensive renovation of the New Africa House and funds for educational and cultural activities for minority students.
Before the Tuesday negotiation
session, protesters dropped their original demands for the suspension or dismissal of five white students accused of beating two blacks Feb. 7 and for the suspension of campus officers in a line-up of blacks the same night in a search for men who allegedly harassed women.
The protesters said they were satisfied that the university or courts would deal with the incidents properly.
Babbitt, du Pont consider quitting campaign
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt and former Delaware Gov. Pete du Pont are considering abandoning their presidential campaigns, Babbitt and other sources said yesterday.
Babbitt said last night he probably would drop out of the Democratic presidential race after poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
After consulting with friends, supporters and family members, Babbitt was prepared to announce his decision at a news conference this morning.
"We have drafted up a statement. It still has three conclusions to it and I have to check one of the boxes," he said.
Babbitt held the possibility that he could be persuaded to continue his
race and was meeting last night with New York financial backers.
Babbitt aides said privately that he was unlikely to endorse anyone, at least in the general sense.
An anonymous source said du Pont was considering abandoning his spot in the Republican race. Du Pont spent yesterday talking with aides. He scheduled a news conference this afternoon in Wilmington, Del.
Babbitt finished sixth of the seven major candidates in the Democratic New Hampshire primary, edging Hart by fewer than a thousand votes.
In the closing days of the New Hampshire campaign, Babbitt had appealed directly to voters to keep his campaign alive.