4A the university daily kansan
opinion
EDITORIAL BOARD
friday, march 5,2004
Justice Scalia: Hunt with non-partisans
Pheasant hunting in Kansas with the governor may not sound as exotic as hopping Air Force 2 to Louisiana to duck hunt with the vice president. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has done both. Both instances raise questions of whether Supreme Court justices should be hunting with people who have cases before the court.
Kansas had two cases before the court in Fall 2001. Stephen McAllister, dean of law, appeared in the first case and argued in the second as state solicitor. Sandwiched between those two cases was Scalia's visit to the Uuiversity's school of law. The University paid for Scalia's airfare, food and lodging in Lawrence, and Scalia declined his speaking fee. While on that same visit, however, Scalia hunted pheasants with then-Gov. Bill Graves, and the justice paid his own way. McAllister did not go hunting.
In January of this year, Scalia and Dick Cheney went duck hunting in Louisiana at a reserve owned by an energy executive. Scalia accepted free air travel on Air Force 2. This was only weeks after the court accepted a case that could decide whether Cheney would have to reveal whom he met with when deciding Bush administration energy policy.
When Scala hunted with Graves, McAllister didn't go
OUR VIEW
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's credibility is rightfully in question. He should take a lesson from Stephen McAllister, dean of law, and appreciate the importance of impartiality.
McAllister acted appropriately as law dean in hosting Justice Scalia. He should continue to get justices to come speak because hearing a Supreme Court is rare and valuable for KU students. McAllister said the school has scheduled Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Spring 2005.
because he said it would be inappropriate. Scalia hunted with the governor when cases important to Kansas were in front of the court, but did not think his impartiality could be reasonably questioned. He did not recuse himself from the Kansas cases, and it doesn't seem as if he will from Cheney's.
Scalia's impartiality has been reasonably questioned in the Cheney instance, and he should recuse himself. It is important to maintain the appearance of an impartial judiciary, especially at a time when the public still questions the court's motives in intervening in the 2000 presidential election. Perhaps he could learn from McAllister that appearances are important when it comes to judicial ethics.
Zach Stinson for the editorial board. He is a Oak Hill, Va., senior in art history.
He is an editorial cartoonist for the Kansan.
Zach Stinson for The University Daily Kansan
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To the guy who wrote the article about cell phones: I keep in touch with so many people now that I have a cell phone. Maybe it is not the usage we should worry about, maybe it's the etiquette.
I just saw somebody paddling to class in a boat. Weird.
It's true you can get drunk by drinking water.
Go see The Passion of the Christ
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Band loses tradition
I'm going to have to disagree with your editorial about the KU band uniforms.
I was a band member from 1998 to 2001. Not all the uniforms were from 1978 - we had a shipment of new overlays: I think it was in 2000.
Also, I've talked to several alumni who are disappointed with the style of the uniforms. They had only the jacket on display at a festival for music teachers last weekend, and it makes me wonder why they didn't show the pants and hat.
One friend I talked to even said they looked like the Mizzou uniforms. The pants are black, as are the hats and the plumes. They won't be visible on the field.
The old band uniforms were indeed bizarre, but they were also one of the most visible signs of school spirit. We had special marching moves on the field during the pre-game to showcase these costumes: a spin turn to make the wings fly out, turning the entire band at once to change colors, etc.
I understand the band needs money, but I would rather give so that the students in band can get better stipends. Being in marching band is like a part-time job.
Affirmative action works for most; token minorities not fair examples
A column which appeared in Monday's The University Daily Kansan praising the efforts of Jason Mattera, a college student who benefited from affirmative action, and now opposes it and established a whites-only scholarship. The author gave too much credit to Mattera.
PERSPECTIVE
GUEST COMMENTARY
While I agree that Mattera's creation of a whites-only scholarship is clever, it is in no way a scathing indictment of affirmative action.
If Mattera is so convinced of the ills of affirmative action, why doesn't he give back the full $5,000 scholarship he received from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund? If Mattera truly believes "scholarships should be given out based on merit and need," why did he take the $5,000 in the first place? His scholarship would not be open to the white student who was awarded the $250. What's preventing Mattera from giving up the rest of his $5,000? Apparently he doesn't find affirmative action quite that bad.
Nicolas Shump
opinion@kansan.com
What is so amusing to me is how quick the author of the column was to hold Mattera up as proof of the contradictory nature of affirmative action. Why?
Because he's Puerto Rican? Alan Keyes was used in the column as another example of a credible source on affirmative action. Why? Because Keyes is African American? What escapes me is why we should be convinced by Jason Mattera and Alan Keyes and not by the thousands of other ethnic minority students and professionals who have benefited from affirmative action in the past 40 years. I myself have been the recipient of several scholarships similar to the one that Mattera "earned." So does that cancel out Mattera's argument? I don't understand the logic.
Like so many other opponents of affirmative action, the author of this column repeated these tired arguments without offering any proof to support his claims. How exactly does affirmative action "systematically undermine minorities ability to succeed on their intellect and hard work alone"?
I'm puzzled over how I was "spoon-fed government assistance" by receiving these various scholarships. Last time I checked, I had to succeed in the classroom just like any other student. It makes as much sense to characterize affirmative action as "spoon-fed government assistance" as it does to characterize the author, who is from Overland Park, as someone who has suckled at the teat of white privilege because he's lived in an area with better funding of school systems, better health care and more community support for achievement.
I'm surprised that this proponent of hard work didn't also indict the legacy system in American colleges and universities that has allowed mediocre students such as our current president to graduate from Ivy League universities. By what merit did "Dubya" and others earn their spots at Yale, Harvard and other bastions of higher education?
Another fact to explore is the quotas that were forced upon Jewish students earlier in the 20th century and similar measures in place now to effectively limit the numbers of Asian-American students who, based on merit, would easily outperform students from other ethnic and racial backgrounds. But this would complicate the author's sophomoric critique of diversity.
Although the author stated in the column that affirmative action began in 1965, the initial program was known as "equal opportunity." What President Lyndon Johnson had in mind was to offer ethnic minority students equal opportunity to a variety of programs, including education, that had long been denied to them.
Affirmative action is by no means a perfect system, but what alternative does the author or Mattera offer? I believe the problem with affirmative action is that it doesn't go far enough. It should not only be a matter of race or ethnicity, but one of class as well. But I should probably just shut up and work hard instead.
Shump is a Lawrence graduate student in American studies.
MUSIC OF MY MIND
Celebration of white history regressive
COMMENTARY
Melissa Shuman 2002 graduate
"Iimagine life without a choice at all/Given a vote without a choice at all/These be the problems that we face/I'm talkin' poverty and race/But no matter what the case we gotta/Hold on to this feeling/FREEDOM/FREE-DOM."
- Marc 7 (of Jurassic 5), Freedom from the 2002 album, Power in Numbers
Cornelius Minor
opinion@kansan.com
Jason Mattera and his whites-only scholarship were praised in a column in the Kansan on Monday. On the same day, a letter to the editor suggested that measures put in place to ensure the fair representation students in organizations such as the Student Senate eclipsed the rights of white students.
As Mattera and his scholarship have attracted the attention of the national press, I've been deeply troubled by one of his criteria for selection: the suggestion that students write about why they are proud of their white heritage. The concept of such a celebration in today's society is repulsive.
This has left me wondering: What type of progress will this generation make in the world that we will soon enter as leaders?
Such heritage celebrations among whites, however, are rooted in a particular brand of American white supremacy that arose at the close of the 19th century as "new" immigrants from Eastern Europe (who were not considered white at the time) flooded the shores of this country. As those people came to the United States, the "old" immigrants — English and others from Western Europe who initially populated the United States and feared the arrival of "others" — began to conceptualize ideologies that established and maintained the severest of inequalities in American life.
Heritage celebrations among nonwhite or other marginalized communities have always been rooted in observing a history of work and struggle for freedom and full inclusion, dual concepts that transcend race. By working toward full inclusion, nonwhite groups in the United States have expanded rights in America for all people including women, the disabled, immigrants and laborers of all professions.
Science was used to "prove" that immigrants, women and ethnic minorities were inferior, thus legitimizing their poor treatment.
During this period, hereditarian organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Colonial Dames and the Society of Mayflower Descendants were formed. These societies, open only to people who could trace their ancestry to the American Revolution, colonial society, or to the Mayflower, respectively, emphasized whiteness as superior stock. Whiteness, in essence, became the fashionably oppressive vogue.
Even if that is not what Mattera means when he references white heritage, that is the past that he suggestively invokes. We know now that America is more than that—well, at least it should be.
The reality in this country is that the playing fields aren't as level as the images that we consume on television would lead us to believe. Though great strides have been made in some of the more visible areas of sports, entertainment and education, ultimately many of the decisions that are made in these and other areas come from the same circles of power that made them 100 years ago.
The fear that government and educational programs will give new people access to those echelons of power is akin to the fear of the new immigrant in the early 1900s. When it comes to human rights, that fear generated a white pride that led to one of America's darkest
The debate over aging and admittedly flawed programs such as affirmative action is far too narrow in its scope. Modern times have complicated problems of race. While race is still a visible dilemma, the issues of gender and class inequality that are embedded in American society plague millions.
hours. We've been down that road already, and we don't need to go again.
It seems to be "American" to promote and kill for freedom as long as it is not the freedom to choose, the freedom to marry, or the freedom to work under safe conditions. Until we seriously engage those questions, our Constitution is, at best, a collection of half-truths.
In Mattera is as interested in promoting American ideals as he claims to be, he would recognize that times such as these call for a different type of pride—a pride anchored in work done to ensure family, community and widespread social progress.
To know the history and privileges associated with whiteness and to celebrate those things is backward. Conversely, to work on extending those privileges to all is progress. Ultimately, working through the residual social elements left by the horrible problems of the past is what's really American.
Minor is an Atlanta graduate student in American studies. He is co-host of KJHK's Voice Activated, at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays.
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