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Wednesday, January 20, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Supreme Court's ruling stifles high school press
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court erred in giving public school officials broad power to censor student newspapers.
In a 5-3 vote, the court ruled that a Hazelwood, Mo., high school principal did not violate students' free-speech rights when he ordered two pages deleted from an issue of the student newspaper.
The case, Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier, was the first high school press case heard before the high court and only the second student expression case since the 1969 Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent Community School District.
In the Tinker case, the court ruled that public high schools may curtail student's free-speech rights only when the student expression is materially disruptive or invades the rights of others.
One of the two censored articles dealt with teen-age pregnancy. The other addressed the effect of divorce on children. Both were later published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and no student or parent raised a complaint.
In his opinion for the court, Justice Byron R. White wrote that a school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its educational mission.
How can articles that address reality be inconsistent with the educational mission of public schools?
Reality is often unpopular because it shows institutions and society in a negative light. If the student press is allowed only to depict a sanitized view of student life — straight-A students, choir practices, pizza parties and homecoming queens — a disservice is done to both readers and student writers.
The court ruled that the student newspaper was not a forum for student expression but a regulated laboratory for the students to practice what they learned in journalism class.
The court's decision opens the door to censorship of any speech that does not show a school in a positive light.
However, journalism is more than a collection of facts, opinions and art splattered across newsprint. The basics of writing and researching a story cannot be separated from the mission of a profession that demands freedom from outside restraint.
Insecure and power-hungry principals will use the court's ruling to justify their manipulation of student publications. Student journalists should not consent to being public relations conduits, even if it means taking student publications "underground" to better serve readers.
Administrators should not be allowed to exploit the ruling. They should recognize the need for student expression and defer to the good judgment of student editors acting on input from faculty advisers.
Student journalists, because of their proximity to student issues, can provide coverage that is often more enlightening than that provided by professional publications.
Regardless of the Supreme Court's ruling, public schools should honor First Amendment rights of student journalists.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
Other Voices
For a coach who has lost two of his last three games, Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne sure has wound up in a profitable situation.
The NU Board of Regents will vote Saturday on a proposed $8,900 salary increase for Osborne, who just completed his 15th season at Nebraska.
An $8,900 raise just doesn't make sense. The salary increase would boost Osborne's pay to $79,000 a year — $3,370 more than University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Martin Massengale and $39,900 more than Gov. Kay Orr.
For now, Osborne's $89,000 salary is competitive with salaries of other college football coaches. The same can't be said of UNL faculty salaries, which, even with help from a tuition hike and Orr's budget proposal, will still be lower than at other land-grant universities.
The Daily Nebraskan University of Nebraska-Lincoln
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
Todd Cohen...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...News editor
Anne Pfleger...Editorial editor
Joseph Rebello...Campus editor
Jennifer Rowland...Planning editor
Anne Luscombe...Sports editor
Stephen Wade...Photo editor
Richard Stewart...Graphic editor
Tom Eben...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 Messersmith...Production manager
Greg Knipp...National manager
Kris Schorner...Traffic manager
Jannie Brown...Classified manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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JIMBROGMAN
CANKINATTENCHW0001088
"ANOTHER BLAST OF ARCTIC AIR HEADING OUR WAY..."
Sometimes joy of living dies first
After 95 years, there are few loose pieces remaining in the puzzle of life
Mabel has seen the world evolve from covered wagons to the Concorde. She remembers the Titanic sinking and Henry Ford coming out with his first car. She has lived through the administrations of 18 presidents, from Benjamin Harrison to Ronald Reagan.
She is in the middle of her 95th year and has
history most of us know only through our
textbooks.
Mabel had to quit school in the eighth grade to work in a broom factory to help support her family. She has been married twice — once divorced, once widowed. She has seen the birth of two children, six grandchildren and more great-grandchildren.
Mabel is full of knowledge despite her lack of education. She knows life; she's lived enough of it.
Her older grandchildren remember spending countless hours listening to their grandmother. Mabel would sit in her favorite chair with the table that always held a half-completed jigsaw puzzle on it pulled up to her. As she deftly fitted a picture of her father into the puzzle, were her favorites, she would bring her past to the present and make it come alive. Jigsaw puzzles keep the mind fit, she would say as she placed
Anne Luscombe Sports Editor
another piece on the first try
But Mabel doesn't do jigsaw puzzles anymore.
But she doesn't do jigsaw puzzles any more.
She is still part of this world, but the vibrant, stubborn woman who has survived almost a century is now just a shell of her former self.
Her great-grandchildren know her only as the old lady who lives in a smelly nursing home room, unable to talk. they are frightened of when she reaches out to grasp their hands. Soon, however, they simply lose interest in their silent elder.
Mabel has suffered several strokes. Her vocabulary has been reduced to a few simple phrases, a couple of words and two expletives.
Mabel wants to die.
She has outgifted all of her friends and most of her siblings. The world she used to be a part of has shrunk to half of a 12-by-14-foot room. Her soul is trapped in a body that refuses to relinquish its
hold on the earth.
hold on the earth.
Mabel doesn't understand why.
Her eyes light up when she has visitors. But as soon as they leave, she is unsure of whether they were really there. Her mind can recall President McKinley's assassination as vividly as though it happened just a few hours ago, but by dinnertime she has forgotten what she had for lunch.
She looks around her half of the room, cluttered with knick-knacks she has accumulated during the six years she has spent in the nursing home. The photographs that once held places of honor on her mantel are now stacked haphazardly on her nightstand.
Each day, she hopes that this will be the day she goes back to the home she and her husband built, or that this will be the day she dies.
The woman who has seen America grow into a superpower, seen her descendants move all over the country and seen her children grow old thinks she has seen enough.
Mabel just wants to put the last piece of her life's jigsaw puzzle in place, close her eyes and say good night.
Faculty did not fail
It appears that once again KU has an athlete who is academically ineligible. From news reports, it seems that Coach Brown is angry at the faculty for Marvin Branch's misfortune. The faculty did not fail, Coach. Marvin Branch failed.
When recruiting these basketball players, maybe intelligence should be considered. In that respect, Coach Brown, too, failed. Wouldn't more intelligent individuals make more intelligent basketball players? That is, better basketball players.
Timothy C. Downs Oshkosh, Wis., junior
Of course, Coach Valesente was fired for that very consideration. KU administrators need to decide whether this school was built for academics or athletics.
I am even more upset with Larry Brown's
As an avid KU basketball fan, I am disappointed in the recent declaration of Marvin Branch its ineligibility for the remainder of the season.
Brown should accept rule
Anne Luscombe is a Kansas City, Kan., senior majoring in journalism.
attitude toward KU's academic standards. First of all, the NCAA establishes what it considers to be minimally acceptable college work. If an athlete fails to meet such requirements, a university has no choice but to declare the student ineligible for athletics.
Brown or any other college coach does not have a right to demand an easier program for a student who is also an athlete. Lambasting an entire academic program that has been in effect since Brown's debut as KU's basketball coach is inexcusable.
To echo the words of Olga Evelyn, academic adviser for the basketball team, an athlete in college is aware of what is expected of him academically and is responsible for meeting such requirements.
Perhaps a prospective athlete should give equal thought to both the quality of the team he wants to play for, as well as the academic demands of that university.
But even more importantly, a coach should be equally and continually concerned with his player's performance on the court and in the classroom.
Darren Rivera
St. Louis junior
Dole is a proven leader
Senator Bob Dole does not promise all things to all people. His proven dedicated leadership from World War II to the present enables him
generally, the first casualty in a political campaign is the truth. Words and promises tailored to what most want to hear flow more freely than wine. The presidential race of 1988 is no exception.
to find the best solution and to slowly but surely implement it.
Bob Dole leads people and manages problems.
Kathee Crough Salina junior
Brown's attitude poor
Larry Brown is certainly correct: it is "obvious that we have to make some changes." University Daily Kansan, Jan. 14. However, the changes that need to be made should be concerned with his attitude toward education, not with University programs as he has suggested. According to Mr. Brown, special programs should be set up for students that "don't have the normal background other students do."
Can a university that is currently experiencing budget problems and inability to provide enough classes and professors for qualified students really afford to devote more money to those who do not display the ability to work on a university level?
It would seem that this is precisely the reason for academic probation — to allow the student a second chance to prove him or herself. If one cannot make the grade even after a period of probation, then it should be that student's responsibility to seek a more conducive atmosphere for his or her ability level.
Mr. Brown and others who espouse his point of view would do well to remember that this is a university — an institute of higher learning. Or at least it should be.
James A. Martin Shawnee senior
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed