Rainy day
The University Daily Kansan
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Today: Showers with a high of 50 and a low of 47.
Saturday: Rain with a high of 52 and a low of 40.
Sunday: Partly cloudy with a high of 53 and a low of 28
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Friday, February 23, 2001
Sports: The men's basketball team plays Nebraska at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Lincoln.
SEE PAGE 1B
Inside: The Hair Museum gives new life to a lost art form. SEE PAGE 6A
SEE PAGE 6A
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole or Mindie Miller at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
(USPS 650-640) • VOL. 111 NO. 97
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Student mad about being locked in bus
By Danny Phillips writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Until Tim Dupree receives the letter of apology that Lawrence Bus Company has promised, he's not sure what action to take against the KU on Wheels driver who locked the doors and refused to let him off the bus until a supervisor arrived.
until a nurse Dupree, Kansas City, Kan., graduate student, said he felt humiliated and embarrassed when the driver refused to let him off because he was using a bus pass that wasn't his.
The KU on Wheels driver has been disciplined for the Feb. 13 incident, said Holly Krebs, transportation coordinator for KU on Wheels
"The driver discriminated against me as a minority and as a male," said Dumree, who is African-American.
Dupree, who is Alireal Boulaye Wayne Popp, president of the Lawrence Bus Company, which oversees the KU on Wheels operations, has written Dupree a formal apology for the incident, Krebs said. She said it stated that a disciplinary report had been put in the driver's file. Popp could not be reached for comment, and the driver's identity could not be confirmed.
The driver picked Dupree up at 11th and Indiana streets, where he showed her a friend's bus pass and boarded the bus, Dupree said. He said the driver drove him to the Kansas Union and asked to see his bus pass again.
bus pass again. Dupree said he asked what the problem was. She just asked to see the pass again without explaining why. At first he refused, but then he took out his wallet, showed the driver the pass through the plastic holder and put the wallet back in his pocket.
The driver asked him to remove the pass from his wallet, Dupree said, but he refused. That's when the driver locked the bus doors and refused to let him exit until KU on Wheels supervisor John Bialek arrived.
Bialek said he had been instructed not to comment on the incident.
Dupree admitted that he was wrong to use a friend's pass to board the bus, but he said the driver should have dealt with the problem before she drove him to the Union. He was also upset that the driver kept him on the bus against his will.
"She detained me for absolutely no reason." he said.
krebs said Dupree had violated two statutes of the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
Article 22, section B, No.7 states a student who "knowingly, and without proper payment, utilizes the services of the University which require payment" is an offense against property.
Section C, No. 2 states a student who "knowingly furnishes false or misleading information to the University" violates the orderly process of the University.
ess of the circling No disciplinary action could be taken against Dupree without the bus pass, Krebs said.
Duprese said that Bialek had never asked him to turn over the pass.
"Hopefully there will be no further problems." Krebs said.
Dupree said he hadn't received the letter yet, but would wait to see what it said before he decided what further action, if any, to take.
"If it's an acceptable apology, then I'll end it there," he said. "I hate that it all happened."
- Edited by Courtney Craigmile
Student battles fatal disease
Life-threatening aplastic anemia affects millions
By Livi Regenbaum
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Jared Brandon was out of breath when he walked to class every day. He began to experience extreme fatigue and leg bruises easily.
Brandon, Overland Park senior,
knew something was not right, but
did not know it sigmaled the beginning
of a life-threatening ordeal.
He has aplastic anemia, a potentially fatal, noncontagious bone marrow failure disease.
Brandon has been at the University of Kansas Medical Center for the past five days having tests and blood transfusions.
David Bodensteiner, the hematologist overseeing Brandon's treatment, said aplastic anemia slowed the production of blood cells.
day it has to make millions, and what happens with aplastic anemia is that the bone marrow stops working."
"The bone marrow functions to make red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets," he said. "Each
He said Brandon got his blood checked every day, but he is waiting to see whether Brandon will respond to treatment.
Bodensteiner said the three most common symptoms of aplastic anemia are bruising, bleeding and fatigue. He said the devastating disease was rare, but still affected about 5 million people a year.
5 million people a year. Randall Rock, physician at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said the causes of aplastic anemia were toxins such as benzene and glue vapors. He said it can also be caused by infections such as mononucleosis and HIV, as well as the use of some medications designed to treat infections.
Bodensteiner said the disease was treatable through a bone marrow transplant, but sometimes required the addition of suppressive drugs. On occasion, the suppressive drugs are sometimes enough to cure the disease.
Bone marrow matches are often times found among family members,
Jared Brandon, Overland Park senior, talks to his friend Marcia on the phone in his room at KU Medical Center. He learned last Sunday that he had aplastic anemia, an extremely rare and potentially fatal bone marrow disease. Photo by Nick Krug/KANSAN
See STUDENT on page 3A
Fight to the meth: Kansas legislators and law enforcers
Meth prosecution a daunting task
By Phil Cauthon
writer@kansan.com
Kansas senior staff writer
Jeff Brandau's life is loaded with methamphetamine.
His otherwise spacious office is brimming with the one of the drug's eew non-lethal byproducts mounds upon heaps of paperwork.
Like all of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's 30 narcotics agents, he investigates more than a dozen new meth lab cases every week, each one a laborious process that can easily last years. With 702 busts on meth labs last year, the KBI's job is about 175 times more intense than it was in 1994. All because of one drug.
"Nobody's foreseen this big of a problem," he said. "Something's going on all the time, all weekend, at night, truly 24 hours seven days a week. And yet look how small of an agency we are, and we're responding to all that we do. It takes a lot from your family. Football games you miss, birthdays, all kinds of thines."
As Brandau talks about his wife and three boys, he stops to answer the phone. "Guess what that was." As soon as he hangs up,
another call concerns a meth-buy he'll make undercover in a half-hour.
Just about every day, Brandau goes undercover into dealers' dilapidated homes wearing the same polo shirt and Levi's that he wears to the office. To catch these criminals he must negotiate the unusually volatile mood swings and hyper paranoia induced by meth.
meant.
"Are there scary times? Sure there are. It can be intense. Really intense." But, he said, "Our best cases are made with undercover activity. You're not dependent on informants to tell you how things operate, who's doing what — you're seeing it for
yourself."
Like Brandau, most Kansas officials see a lot of meth. In many ways, Kansas is the ideal host for the drug. Interstates 70, 35 and 135 serve as arteries for meth trafficking from the Southwest and Mexico, which shoots the drug right into Kansas communities. Whereas drugs like heroin and cocaine are harder to find here, meth can be bought in the most remote Kansas towns.
most remote locations.
Even if imported meth isn't available, anyone can make it using household products and a recipe off the Internet. The state's open, rural spaces are perfect for manufacturing meth, a process traceable by its noxious fumes. And, one of the main ingredients in meth is readily available on any Kansas farm — the fertilizer anhydrous ammonia.
Meth also thrives in Kansas because local police and sheriff's departments are generally
not equipped to fight the drug. Because evidence from meth busts often involves hazardous chemicals, cops must have extensive training to investigate cases. Thus most of the casework falls back on the KRI's agents.
On his office wall above an FBI training certificate, Brandau keeps a portrait of George Custer. He laughs when asked about it. "Yep. That's us. We might be surrounded, but we're going to fight like hell."
Eating away the state's pocketbook
Once Brandau and other officers catch a meth dealer or manufacturer, the battle is only half-won, if that. Successful prosecution is a daunting task as well.
After a meth lab is busted, investigators have 48 hours to file charges. The accused is then entitled to a preliminary hearing within two weeks.
At the preliminary hearing, prosecutors — such as Wichita District Attorney Mike
See LEGISLATURE on page 3A
University Council tables revised course retake policy
By Cássio Furtado
University Council has tabled a course retake policy that would expunge the original grade of students who had received a D or an F in the course and average the grades of students who had received an A, B or C the first time.
Kansan staff writer
tabled at the University Council's meeting yesterday after more than an hour of discussion because members wanted more time to debate the proposal.
The proposal, which had been previously approved by University Senate Executive Committee, was
The proposed retake policy would also allow students to retake courses in which they had received a D or an F without any approval from the University. Instead, students would be required to register with the dean of the school where the course was offered in order to
prevent students with academic misconduct from benefiting from the new policy.
The proposed policy was created in Fall 1999. It was then introduced to the academic policies and procedures committee, to SonEx and to University Council. The policy, at the time, was
The policy, at the time, was approved by all three bodies.
The University administration sent the policy back to University governance because it had problems with its implementation, said Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, associate provost.
Fawcett, associate professor,
Bernard Hirsch, associate professor of English and member of SenEx, said the policy would be a bad idea because students had several opportunities during the course of a semester to talk with their instructors and resolve grade problems.
“At some point, people should take responsibility,” Hirsch said.
new money.
She introduced an amendment at meeting, which would allow students only to retake a course that had been taken during the first 80 hours of their college career.
The policy will be considered again by University Council at its next meeting Thursday, March 8.
- Edited by Sydney Wallace
Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, associate provost, said she was comfortable with the draft of the new policy.
What happened: University Council delayed its decision on a new course retake policy at its meeting yesterday.
COURSE RETAKE:
What it means: The proposed policy would expunge the first grades of students who had received a D or F. It would also allow students to retake courses in which they earn a D or F without approval, but only if they register with the school's dean.
What's next? The council will reconsider the proposal at its meeting Thursday, March 8.