Wednesday, April 4, 2001
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
Students petition for Paycheck Fairness Act
By Cynthia Malakasis
writer @kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Amy Price and Lisa Koch brought home a nationwide campaign dealing with gender wage inequality yesterday.
Yesterday was Equal Pay Day, organized by the National Committee on Pay Equity. Price, Lawrence senior, and Koch, Des Moines, Iowa junior, offered information and gathered signatures for a petition supporting the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act.
Koch said that an equal number of men and women signed the petition to support the act.
The proposed Paycheck Fairness Act, if passed by Congress, would amend the Equal Pay Act to provide compensatory
and punitive damages to women that are not paid equal wages for equal work.
"We are raising awareness in that a pay gap still exists between male and female payment," said Price.
Price said that the gist of the problem was that a full-time working woman would get paid only 72 percent of the earnings of a full-time working man.
The 1999 median annual income for men was $36,476. Women earned $26,
324—an annual discount of $10,152.
Price said that although laws like the Equal Pay Act had been on the books for years, a wage gap still existed.
"It certainly goes back to sex segregation, but it's more than that," Price said. The National Committee on Pay Equity divides the problem into two
trends. Occupational segregation is the tendency for women to occupy lower-paying jobs. The "glass ceiling" is the term used to describe the barrier that makes it difficult for women to reach the top-level positions in their fields.
The committee's statistics also show that weak enforcement of existing laws results in women sometimes getting paid less than men for doing the same work.
Koch said she thought men were also concerned about a decrease in their family incomes if their female family members received lower salaries.
"It gets pigeonhead into a feminist issue thing, but it's a general issue," she said. "There are a lot of jobs where men are paid unequal salaries."
Results from the 2000 Census report that working women earn 72 percent of the wage earned by working men.
Pay inequality
Stephanie Smith, Shawnee junior.
Source: National Committee on Pay Equity
Kyle Ramsay KANSAN
said she signed the petition because she was worried about her wages when she graduated.
"I hope it's going to be productive," she said.
- Edited by Brandy Straw
Past Kansan columnist's work printed in textbook
By Sarah Warren
Breeze Lauetke-Stahlman took college English 101 and 102 while still in high school and thought that her writing was awful in comparison to the "normal" college kids in her classes. Now, the Olathe senior is published in an English textbook for college freshmen.
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A column that Luetke-Stahlman wrote for the University Daily Kansan was included in the fourth edition of, America Now: Short Readings from Recent Periodicals (2001 Bedford/Fst. Martin's) edited by Robert Atwan. The column, entitled "Real People Make Real Role Models" was published in the February 7, 2000 edition of the Kansan, when Luetke-Stahlman was on staff as a columnist for the editorial page.
"Being in a book that was aimed at teaching college freshmen how to write was really nice for me," Lukeet-Stahman said. "It's funny how things work out."
Nadia Mustafa, *Kansanopinion* co-editor during spring 2000, said that she had not heard of any other *Kansaq* columnist being published in a text.
published in a textbook.
"I've heard of that happening with academic papers but not with a column from the UDK, although it might have and I just don't know about it." Mustafa said.
The column discusses the idea that there are role models all around us, rather than just in the movies or on television. Luekte
Stahlman argued that all people who tried to make a difference in the community, not just those who were tagged "activists," should be deemed role models because "one person can make a difference, and it is these people who we should strive to be like."
"The point of this column was to really look at the definition of an activist and looking at activism from another angle." Luetke-Stahman said. "An activist is someone who is trying to make their own community better."
The book asks students to answer a series of questions about the editorial. Lueket-Stahman said that at first she thought the idea of her own work being dissected by other students was a bit odd and intriguing. But her heart warmed when she looked at the exercise in the section labeled "in-Class Writing Activities." Lueket-Stahman, a self-described "life-time activist" was excited to see that the authors had included an assignment in this section to write a letter to the editor at the local campus newspaper discussing something that the person really cared about.
"What more could I ask for than to have a professor instruct a class to do the things I asked people to do in my column?" Luetke-Stahman said.
Mustafa said that Lueetek-Stahlman's constant call for activism in the community had made her an attractive choice as a columnist.
"One of the reasons we hired Breeze as a columnist was because she's always been really involved as an activist on and off campus," Mustafa said. "She brought an interesting perspective to the editorial page and the Kansan."
It just so happens that Luetke-Stahlman's role model is the person who persuaded her to write columns in the first place. She said that Billy Upski Wimsatt, author of *Bomb the Suburbs*, was her role model and close friend.
"He's taught me a lot about the value of networking, self-education and personal growth," Luetke-Stahlman said. "He's the one who first encouraged me to publicly write."
She said that she hoped that her publication in America Now would be the first of many in her quest for community activism.
"Toho to get published many more times in the future," Lueke-Stahman said.
—Edited by Jennifer Valadez
Newly-found skulls may unveil clues to human evolution
By Michelle Ward
writer @kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Jennifer Macy has turned from textbook pages to newspaper pages to interest her students in archaeology. The teaching assistant announced recently to her class of more than 130 students that a new discovery had created a whole new wrinkle in the understanding of human ancestry.
The unearthing of 3.5-million-year-old skull parts at an architectural dig in Kenya two weeks ago has anthropologists wondering if the previously undiscovered species may lead them to different conclusions about human evolution.
The physical features of the newly discovered flat faced man do not coincide with those of his counterpart of the time, known as Lucy, discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia.
While Lucy, with a chimpanzee-like face, was thought to be a direct ancestor of humans, the newest fossil resembles a different kind of primate, with a flat face and smaller moles.
"We tell our students human paleontology is changing all the time," said Macy, a Lawrence graduate student. "Our understanding is altered when new information comes to light. This could potentially change everything."
The latest discovery may show that Lucy is just a side branch on the human evolution tree while the Kenya fossils are on the main line, said David Frayer, professor of anthropology.
Although there is only one variety of modern-day human, there may have been at least two species of human-like primates living in the same habitat in pre-historic times.
The fossils' discovery was unexpected, Frayer said, because nearly 1,000 different specimens of the Lucy-type species had already been discovered. With such a large number of fossils, scientists did not expect to find a strikingly different primate.
“It’s a very complicated picture,” he said of the discovery. “There are tens of thousands of fossils. We only have a small portion of these. It’s like putting together a 3.5-million-year-old jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing.”
Although the discovery complicates things, it does not overturn everything scientists know thus far. Frayer said. It just helps fill gaps in history and adds more questions for scientists to answer.
"When you don't have much information, the story is relatively simple — there is not much variation. As more evidence is discovered, old models are thrown out for hopefully better ones," Frayer said.
— Edited by Matt Daugherty
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